


Repatriation

by eliddell



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Ending, Drama, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-02 04:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 53
Words: 243,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliddell/pseuds/eliddell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Shouri unexpectedly tripped over a mostly-dead Geneus in an alleyway in the capital of Shin Makoku, he didn't expect it to be the beginning of another epic mess involving both Cimarons, the White Crow, the origin of the Originator, Seisakoku, and a complete change in his own future prospects.</p><p>(Splits from the third season near the beginning of the third-to-last episode.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ::Sigh:: Where do I even start?
> 
> I've been working on this for a little over a year. It's on the order of 250000 words long, and if I post one chapter or interlude a day, I should be done sometime in January. The astute reader may recognize a few plot points as being similar to things that happened in 1826:1, but this is actually the older story.
> 
> Why the fascination with the Shouri/Geneus pairing? Well, I do think that of all the major recurring KKM characters, Shouri gets the worst deal from fanfic writers. There's relatively little written about him at all, and when he does show up, it seems like he's usually just an irritant or obstacle for Yuuri. As often as not, the character growth he demonstrates between his first major appearance and the end of the third season is just discarded. Even Wolfram gets a better deal than that!
> 
> As for Geneus, I guess I just feel sorry for the poor bastard.
> 
> There's this, too: the end of the third season of KKM has always struck me as a bit rushed. There are a _lot_ of loose ends left dangling with respect to Seisakoku and the holy sword—the whole question of how it ended up where Alford found it is just ignored. And that annoys me.
> 
> Textual oddities: I know it's sloppy to mix Japanese honourific suffixes and English titles. Mea culpa. I did start out trying to police that, but it led to some weird phrasing and missing distinctions between forms of address, so I eventually just gave up.
> 
> The mixture of measurement systems is intentional, though. Shouri has spent much of his life in Japan, so he thinks in metric, but I've rendered the otherworld measurements as Imperial when they come up in dialogue.
> 
> There may be other oddities—names rendered slightly differently from their canonical versions, terms whose capitalization shifts between usages, etc. The larger and more consistent the difference, the more likely it is that I did it on purpose. (No, I didn't have a beta reader for this.) On the specific point of Josak's name, though, it really is "Josak" that's his personal name and "Gurrier" that's his family name—you can tell if you listen to the Japanese dialogue in the episode where he first introduces himself. The official translation forgot to reverse the name order for some reason (and that isn't the only mistake they made over the course of the series).
> 
> I'll cover other details as they come up.

It started not long after they first met, so subtly that he didn't notice it at the time. 

_I envy you—you are able to remain near the one you seek to protect._

A few words, a wistful smile, speaking of an emotion that he understood better than the speaker might have thought. A body pressed firmly to his, shielding him as they tumbled through the air and smashed into the ground, rolling, shielded by magic, to fetch up against a tree. 

_This would be the perfect time for you to make your escape._

Peculiar honesty. An expression in violet eyes that should have been black, one that spoke of familiar, aching knowledge: _I am not good enough to help and guard the one I love. I don't even have the strength to spare you, an innocent stranger, what I must do._

Waking to find a knife held up in front of him, and feeling the tremble in the other's body as he shouted into the storm. Knowing with bone-deep certainty that the violet-eyed man, for all his threats, wasn't going to hurt him. 

Long conversations through the door of a ship's cabin, the two of them talking about topics that mattered to neither in order to alleviate the boredom of days at sea. And somewhere in between the life cycle of the Flying Bone Tribe and a comparison of the creation mythologies of the two worlds, realizing that he enjoyed the discussions for more than just the distraction, that given the choice this was a man he would have sought out freely for companionship. 

And then, the sickening realization that this was another person he could not help or protect. Separation by circumstances. A return to Shin Makoku, house arrest, and then that horrific meeting outside the temple. 

_I'm sorry._

He wasn't sure to what extent the other even noticed his apology. He saw the brief blankness cross that face, but the violet eyes were fixed on another. Watching the attack made him ache inside, but there was nothing he could do except stand and bear witness as Shin'ou, backed by a dozen priestesses and the will of the Great Sage, tried to extinguish a life that was already flickering out. His entire being ached with the need to step in, to protect the violet-eyed man who had no one else to speak for him, but he knew he lacked the strength to stop the dead king if that last was determined to bring this about. He was not a Maoh himself, not yet. Still, what he saw as his cowardice ate at him. 

As he passed through the gate, he was able to release only the least part of his frustration by punching the wall so hard that the skin over his knuckles split and bled, causing a passing priestess to tut-tut and offer him healing with such firmness that he had no choice but to accept. 

She left him standing, staring at the red smear on the wall but seeing violet eyes that had no life left in them, no hope, only an acknowledgment of pain and failure. 

_Geneus . . ._


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I forgot the say in the first author's note: It's probably obvious, but this story follows the anime canon. The bits and pieces of stuff I dragged in from other sources (like the name of Seisakoku's capital) should not be misconstrued to indicate that any pieces of the novel canon that I didn't explicitly include are applicable. In particular—you know that thing about the Great Sage and Shin'ou being brothers? That doesn't apply to this story.
> 
> I also forgot to mention the peripheral pairings. Sage/Shin'ou (yes, in that order) comes up several times, but we don't see anything explicit. Conrad/Josak gets a brief mention, and, um, there's a brief segment of Gwendal/Gunter/Anissina lime around midway through. No, I don't know how that happened, and I'll mark it when it comes up in case anyone wants to skip it—it isn't essential to the story.

I wasn't in the greatest of moods when I left the castle that day. No, scratch that: I was downright angry, between having had to watch what Murata and his ghostly friend had tried to do to Geneus, and my not even having been able to protect Yuuri by placing myself between him and Alazon, because she didn't _want_ me anymore. I wasn't _good_ enough to wield her damned sword and save her country. If I'd stayed at the castle one more instant, I think I would have gone crazy and hit someone, most likely Murata, which would no doubt have led to me being embarrassingly skewered on several people's swords when they moved reflexively to protect him. 

I was able to just walk through the gates. Apparently no one had ordered the soldiers to keep me under guard. My reward for having stayed quietly inside like a good little boy since I'd gotten back from Cimmaron, I suppose. Or else I wasn't important enough to them, either. 

The walk down to the town cooled my head a little bit, and when I took my hands out of my pockets, they weren't clenched into fists anymore. I barely got a second glance, despite my black hair and literally otherworldly clothing. The capital was on high alert, full of soldiers, and still messed up from the phantom beasts Geneus had sent in as a diversion. Everyone was either patrolling or scrambling to clean up the damage. I got a nod and a "Shouri-sama" from a couple of officers I passed, who probably recognized me from the castle, but they were intent on their own business, and I guess they thought I couldn't get into much trouble with all those armed men around. 

I don't know what alerted me to his presence—a flutter of movement in the darkness of that alley, maybe, or the sound of harsh, desperate breathing—but something led me to stop and turn my head and see a dark human form crumpled on the ground. 

I half-ran the few steps up the alley to kneel beside him. Shook him gently, thinking that he'd been injured in the attack on the town. He was too far in shadow for me to see and recognize the details of his clothing. 

"Hey! Are you alright?" 

It was only when a shaking hand rose to grasp my wrist and a weak voice said, "Shouri-dono," that I realized who I had found. 

"Geneus! Are you—" — _okay?_ No, that was a stupid question. "Can you sit up?" I tried instead. "We have to get you out of here." I didn't really know how to help him—a body that needed houryoku to sustain it couldn't be put together in the normal way, could it?—but I was pretty sure that lying on cold stone couldn't be good for him. 

"Why? He does not want me . . . What is the point of me scrabbling for a few more minutes of life? What have I been doing up until now? All I wanted was to be by his side . . ." 

Something twisted inside me, because I had no doubt whatsoever that I knew exactly who "he" was. _That bastard Shin'ou . . . never mind Murata, I'm going to deck_ him _!_

"I do not want to die," that heartbreaking whisper rambled on. "I do not want to die, and yet . . . what else is left for me now? I cannot do anything to help him . . ." 

"Hey, get a grip," I said sharply, then added, "I'm sorry about what happened at the temple. I wanted to stop it, but I just wasn't strong enough to fight them. I'll find some way to help you—I'll intercede with Shin'ou for you, whatever—but if you ever want to see him again, you have to pull yourself together, because I don't think I can carry you." 

The whispering voice trailed into silence, but the violet eyes focused on me, and Geneus put one bony hand on my shoulder, enough to help me lift him into a sitting position. I winced as I saw what kind of shape he was in, face hollow as though he'd been starved, neck corded like an old man's, and he was far, far too light. He'd never exactly been big, but the body that had pressed against mine during our fall from that carriage that he'd had driven over the cliff had been leanly muscular—kind of like Gunter's. He was wasted now, to the point where I worried that just walking out of the alley would probably kill him, but what else could I— 

I don't know why, but I got damned lucky just then as a familiar tall figure silhouetted itself in the mouth of the alleyway. 

"Beryes!" 

Saralegui's retainer whipped around to face me, hands on his swords. He relaxed only slightly when he saw me. 

"Shouri-sama! What are you doing here?" 

"I need your help," I said. "I've never used my powers for healing, and anyway, I don't know what forcing my energy into him would do, given that his body's pretty much held together by houjutsu. But you can—" 

"Shouri-sama, that man is—" 

I came pretty close to grinding my teeth. "I know who he is—probably better than anyone else in this damned country! He doesn't deserve to die like this, Beryes. I'm _tired_ of everyone acting like he's just some damned puppet that can be stuffed in a cupboard somewhere when he's not needed!" 

"You do not . . ." Geneus didn't even seem to be strong enough to complete the sentence, and I gathered him more closely to me, trying to lend him some warmth, because his body was like ice, even through his clothing. Then I glared at Beryes. 

"Get over here _right now_ ," I said, in my best imitation of the command voice that Bob seldom used in my hearing. I could feel my maryoku rippling inside me, responding eagerly to my anger—difficult to believe that I hadn't even been aware of it a year ago. 

Beryes hesitated for another split second before taking three reluctant steps into the alleyway to kneel beside us. 

"I will do what I can," he said as he cupped his hands over Geneus' chest. "But I should warn you that my power is less than my sister's. What I can afford to give him will likely not sustain him for more than a few hours." 

"Long enough to get him up to the castle is all I ask," I said as I watched the air between his hands begin to glow. I could feel Geneus stiffen against me, and I knew he didn't want to go, but . . . "Someone up there might have an idea of how to stabilize his condition so that he won't need constant infusions of energy this way." It was grasping at straws, but I also knew it was the only hope he had. "I don't know who else to ask, unless your King Saralegui . . . Where is he, anyway?" 

"I don't know," Beryes said grimly. "We came out of the teleport in different places, or at least, I hope that is what has happened. He has to be nearby, but finding him in this chaos will be a difficult task." 

"I'm sorry. Maybe I can ask some of the soldiers to help you." Surely one of those officers I had passed could spare a few men to help "Shouri-sama"'s friend . . . 

"You might try the rooftops." Geneus' voice still wasn't all that loud, but it was at least stronger than it had been. "It will offer you slightly better visibility, at least." 

Beryes' eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. 

"For what little it may be worth, I do not think Alazon will harm him," added the former White Crow strike force leader. "I have heard her weeping at night with your master's name on her lips, when she thought no one was about. I think she truly regretted leaving him." 

Beryes bowed his head momentarily. "Perhaps, then, there is some part of my sister that is still as I remember her from when I was a child." The glow beneath his hands faded out. "I cannot afford to give you any more. I am sorry." The apology, to my surprise, sounded genuine. "But if my master is injured, and I were to come to his side with my power exhausted . . ." 

"I understand," Geneus said, before I could find any words. "Thank you. We will manage from here. Go and find your Saralegui. Keep him safe." 

A quick nod, and Beryes was on his feet and walking away. 

"Are you sure this is okay?" I asked the man I was still half-supporting. I had to admit that he did feel . . . more solid, but his face was still hollow, and I couldn't feel any warmth coming from his body. 

Geneus' smile was a mere quirk of his lips, laid over pain and the memory of pain. "I could not keep him here. I know too well how he must feel." 

_And you would,_ I realized. _You would._ What Saralegui was to Beryes, that bastard Shin'ou had been to Geneus. 

I bit back what I _wanted_ to say, and asked instead, "Do you think you can stand? You really shouldn't stay here." 

"The worst of the pain and the weakness are gone for the time being, but that will not last for long. Despite your friend's assistance, my body is still deteriorating, Shouri-dono. It was never meant to last more than a few years, and even Alazon, who created it, is no longer capable of keeping me stable. It would be better for you to stop wasting your time and let me die in peace." 

"That's ridiculous," I snapped. "I'm not going to let you just give up. You still have things you want to do, don't you?" 

The sound he made almost managed to be a laugh. "You are as stubborn as your brother, in your own way. The things I wanted to do . . . they are not possible now that _he_ has discarded me as useless." 

That bastard Shin'ou. Again. "I really am going to punch him out," I muttered, and this time, the noise Geneus made definitely was a laugh. 

"Perhaps I will try to live a little longer, then, so that I may witness the attempt." There it was again: that smile. "He always did need someone to knock sense into him periodically. He could be such a fool about some things . . ." 

"And helping Murata try to do whatever the hell he thought he was going to do to you is one of them," I said firmly. "Now, I'm going to stand up, and you'd better come with me, because even if you're perfectly comfortable sitting here, _I'm_ not." 

Geneus didn't say anything, but he lifted his hand from my shoulder so that he could slide that arm properly around my neck, and with the help of a convenient wall, I was able to get us both to our feet. Together, we left the alley and walked slowly out into the thoroughfare from which I'd spotted him. 

A house half a block down from us had been among the buildings worst-damaged in the phantom beast attack. Now it was ringed by soldiers, who were trying to keep away anyone who didn't have business there—to reduce the risk of some idiot being brained by falling shingles, I guess—and the officer in charge was one of the ones who had "Shouri-sama"'d me earlier. 

Geneus made a feeble gesture with his free hand as we approached the soldiers—I think he was trying to pull up a hood he wasn't wearing anymore. But he stopped after the first attempt, as though it was too much effort . . . which it likely was, in his current state. 

I marched the two of us right up to the officer and said, straight out, "I need a carriage." 

A slow blink. "Shouri-sama?" 

"A carriage," I repeated. "Or a cart. Or a damned _wheelbarrow_ , if that's all you can find. I need to get my friend up to the castle, and he's too weak to ride that far, much less walk." 

The officer swallowed visibly. "Yes, my lord. One moment please." He turned and shouted at a couple of soldiers, who ran away from the half-crumbled house in opposite directions, like startled rabbits. 

I led Geneus over to a fallen stone block and helped him sit down. He slumped against me, arm still around my shoulders, and I would have thought he'd fainted if his eyes hadn't still been open and aware. 

"Just a little longer," I told him, and he nodded, weakly. 

We'd been there for a couple of minutes, I think—long enough for the stone to warm a bit from my body heat, but not long enough for the runners to come back—when a soldier emerged from the ruins of the house and saluted his officer. 

"Sir! We've found the missing child." A hesitation. 

"Well, spit it out, man—is she dead?" 

"No, sir, but . . . it doesn't look good. She was caught under the stones as they fell, and the corner of one of them struck her head, leaving a visible dent. She's still breathing, but we need someone with strong healing powers, otherwise Caden says she could die at any moment." 

"By Shin'ou's hairy balls," the officer muttered, scrubbing a hand across his face. "There isn't anyone in this part of town. We'll have to send up to the castle for Sergeant Giesela, and hope she gets here in time, or . . ." Suddenly his expression lightened, and he turned to face me. "Shouri-sama! They say your powers are second only to the king's own! Surely you can—" 

I could see his face fall again as I shook my head. The thought of a little girl with her skull smashed in sickened me, but lying wouldn't help her. "I've never learned to heal," I said, and the words tasted bitter. 

"I can guide you through it." Geneus' words sounded louder in the silence surrounding them. "I may have no maryoku of my own to give, but there is little I do not know about how to apply it." 

"Are you sure?" I said. "I mean . . ." 

I felt him flinch, where he was leaning against me. "This is my fault, Shouri-dono. I never intended to harm this child, but I was . . . in no condition to think. Please, let me help set this right. I only hope that she hasn't been left for too long already. I saw many head injuries during the war, and sometimes nothing we could do would put them to rights." 

The officer was staring thoughtfully at the two of us. I just hoped he thought Geneus was talking about the not-so-long-ago war between Shin Makoku and Big Cimaron, and not the ancient war against the Originators. Really, I was surprised Geneus' description hadn't been circulated among the troops. Between Gwendal, Gunter, and Conrad, _someone_ should have thought of that. It wasn't as though Geneus wasn't pretty damned recognizable. Or maybe my ex-captor _had_ been identified, and the combination of his being with me, his obvious weakness, and the fact that he wasn't trying to fight or run away had bought him a little leeway. 

I cleared my throat. "I'll try to help her," I said, and the officer nodded. 

A few moments later, I was kneeling beside a blanket that had been turned into a makeshift stretcher, with Geneus leaning against my shoulder. The girl looked like she was maybe a year or two younger than little Greta, and she had one of those unnatural hair colours you saw sometimes on people from this world, a sort of blue-violet. Her curls were clotted with blood at a point just behind her left ear, where the stone had hit her. The soldier had been right: there was a visible dent in her skull under all the blood, a triangular space where I could see broken bone poking through the skin. I wanted to be sick, but I was damned if I was going to allow my stomach to get the better of me before I'd done everything I could to help her. 

"Cup your hands over the wound," Geneus prompted softly. "Do not touch her, however, or you might burn her if you draw too much power too suddenly. Do you know how to extend your focus?" 

"Yeah." It had been one of the first things Ulrike had taught me. She'd called it a basic prerequisite for any kind of complex magic. _I guess she was right._

"Good. Try to extend yourself into the child's body, right there where the wound is. Like all of us, she is mostly made of water, so your contract should ease the way for you." 

_Water. Right._ It's difficult to explain what magical focus feels like. Not quite like looking at something, and not quite like touching it, but it has elements of both. I'd never tried to focus on water so diffuse as what was inside the human body before, and it wasn't easy. I concentrated as hard as I could, sweat beading on my forehead, but it felt like hours before I was able to say, "I think I've got it." 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Geneus' slight nod. "You need to lift the bone out of the way first. There _is_ water in it too, which you can use to move it. But you will need to do it gently, and without shifting anything else." 

I'd never tried to separate one bit of water from several others that felt exactly like it, either, but all I said was, "I understand." Really, I thought, the bone would be the _least_ -wet bit of what was in there. In the end, that was how I found it, by searching for a relative _absence_ of water. And then I tugged on it, as gently as I could, and felt it shift. 

There was a rush of water underneath as the fragment pulled back into its proper place. 

"Control it," Geneus said. "You must not permit the blood to pool—if you do, it will damage even more of her brain. You need to keep it running in its proper channels with part of your mind while you use the rest to _gently_ encourage her body's natural healing processes." 

"I don't know if I can." I could barely recognize the voice as my own. More sweat was running down my ribs, soaking my shirt. This was ten times harder than anything Ulrike had ever had me do. 

"Do not hurry it. Get the bleeding under control first. Once you have a clear mental picture of the proper blood flow, you will find it easier to spare the attention for something else." 

I tried, searching with my mind for the wetter traces of arteries and veins underneath skin and bone, and trying to keep the blood moving out of the damaged part of the nameless little girl's brain as fast as it came in. Piece by piece, I built up that picture and forced myself to hold it inside my mind. 

"How do I . . . ?" Speaking almost made me lose my concentration, and I wasn't able to finish the question, but Geneus seemed to understand anyway. 

"Project your maryoku into her without invoking your element, while you visualize her as whole and well Do not worry. This is the easiest part, the part that everyone learns how to do." 

Which I would bet meant that everything he'd had me doing up until then was normally healers' work only. And I'd done that. I could do this too. Right? 

It felt like I was bleeding myself, emptying the red fluid slowly out of my veins and into the little girl's, one drop at a time. And I still had to hold onto the channel-image in my head and make sure that nothing started bleeding the wrong way, because I was damned if I was going to screw that up now. I closed my eyes and let everything outside of the girl's body recede from my awareness . . . until I felt gloved fingers touch the back of my hand. 

"That is enough, Shouri-dono." 

I blinked blearily at Geneus. "Just 'Shouri' is fine. Is . . . is she . . . ?" 

"You have done everything you can. Look." 

I lifted my cupped hands away from the child's head. There was still blood underneath them, matted in her hair, but it was dry, and the terrible hole that had revealed the shattered bone had become a thick scab. 

"It is impossible to know whether or not she will ever wake, but she has a good chance now." 

I nodded. Ran my hands through my own hair. I really had sweated buckets. My shirt was plastered to my skin, and I was surprised my glasses weren't fogged up. 

"Shouri-sama?" Not Geneus' voice. My head snapped up. 

"Giesela-san?" I could see the carriage she'd just gotten down from parked in the middle of the street. 

Her eyes found Geneus' thin, wasted face, and Gunter's adoptive daughter took a half-step back. Then her mouth firmed and she began to move forward again. "I understand that an injured child was pulled from a house—" 

"Shouri-sama healed her," the officer put in. 

Giesela blinked at me. " _You?_ " 

"With help," I said, nodding to Geneus. "He was the one that knew how. I just supplied the maryoku." 

Another blink, and she knelt beside the child's makeshift stretcher and took the girl's wrist into her hand. Her eyes unfocussed for a moment. "Bone fused," she muttered. "No swelling in the brain. Dead tissue clearing out as quickly as . . . reasonable." She go of the girl's arm, placing it on the child's chest, on top of her torn, rumpled, and filthy blue dress. "For a first healing, you did an extremely good job. For someone with no training in the art . . . this is phenomenal, Shouri-sama. She will live, and I'm almost certain that she'll wake up." 

I felt a bit of tension go out of me as she said that. Really, all I wanted to do was flop down on the ground and rest, but I was still supporting Geneus. 

"Can we borrow your carriage?" I asked instead. 

She nodded. "I brought it down for you, really. The message calling for my help mentioned that you were down here—which took a load off my father's mind—and I know you don't ride." She stood up, dusting off the knees of her white uniform trousers. "The message didn't mention _him_ , though," she added with a cold glare at Geneus. 

"Hey, now, would you expect me to just leave him lying in an alley?" I was too damned tired for this, but I forced myself to my feet anyway, carrying the object of our dispute with me. 

"I would _expect_ you to hand him over to the guards, not endanger yourself by—" 

"—helping a friend?" I suggested tiredly. 

"Shouri-sama—" 

"Shouri—" Geneus spoke for the first time since Giesela's arrival. 

I cut them both off. "Can we talk about this some other time? Or on our way back up to the castle? Geneus should be in bed, and I'm not much better off." 

"Shouri . . . it will not help." 

I think that was when Giesela finally noticed how weak Geneus looked, because her frown changed from it's I'm-angry version to its oh-no-another-patient version, and she reached for his wrist. He tried to pull away, but he clearly wasn't strong enough, and her frown went through another couple of mutations, to I'm-healing-don't-bother-me, and then to a kind of puzzlement I'd never seen from her before. Apparently she relaxed her grip when she was confused, because Geneus retrieved his hand. 

"I don't understand. How can you be so physical, and yet have a body that's only held together by these fading energies?" 

Geneus grimaced. "A convoluted application of houjutsu. You did not inform your allies . . . ?" he added to me. 

I shrugged. "I told a few people. Yuuri and his inner circle. I guess they didn't think it was important enough to pass on. Giesela-san, can you help him?" 

Her teeth worried at her lower lip for a moment. "I think . . . no. I'm sorry. Perhaps the Great Sage would have some idea." 

"Murata's already tried to kill him once," I said, seeing the flare of hatred in Geneus' eye and feeling glad that he was too weak to act on it. "I won't let him do it again." 

"Oh. Well, then . . . Anissina-san, maybe?" 

"Only as a last resort," I said, wincing. "We have a little time—hours at least, maybe a day or two. I'm hoping someone will come up with something." There were more people at the castle who knew a thing or two about magic than just my brother's friend. Surely one of them . . . I sighed. _Right now, I really wish I had Yuuri's boundless optimism._

Unexpectedly, Giesela lifted Geneus' other arm across her shoulders, and together we half-carried the man toward the carriage. I was grateful to have someone to share his weight with, because my knees were close to giving out. I pressed my forehead against the inside of the carriage's closed door and sort of slumped while Giesela leaned out to give instructions to the driver. 

"I don't know how anyone can heal people for hours at a time, day after day, if this is the amount of energy it takes," I told the wood paneling. 

"You really expended very little of your maryoku on the girl," Geneus said. "It was the concentration that exhausted you. Much of a healer's training involves improving one's concentration." A pause. "Shouri . . ." 

"Mmh?" The carriage moved off, and my forehead knocked gently against the wood. 

"Why did you not just leave me in that alley? I am unworthy of your concern. I kidnapped you, attacked your brother . . ." 

I blinked, tried to focus on him. "I don't think you ever seriously meant to harm Yuuri. As for that kidnapping, well . . ." I felt myself smile, quite unexpectedly. "I went along with it because you managed to make me curious. And because I enjoyed talking to you." 

Geneus' eyebrows rose. "Truly?" 

"Yeah, truly. People become friends all the time for worse reasons." 

" . . . Friends." 

"I know you probably haven't had many in this lifetime, but I'm pretty sure you remember the concept." 

"I do," came the soft-voiced confirmation. His smile this time was tired, knowing . . . rueful. 

It was a bit odd that I liked Geneus almost as much as I found Murata irritating, really. Hadn't they started out as the same person? But weirdly, Geneus had always been more honest with me than my brother's friend. Even when he was working for the other side. 

"I also found you interesting to talk to," he was saying now. "I have had few enough pleasures while playing Alazon's hired thug, and I must admit that that was one of the most . . . unexpected. I am glad we met." 

"Don't start talking like you're going to die again," I snapped. "Look, once we've got you settled, I'll go up to the temple and give Shin'ou a piece of my mind. I don't really think it'll take much to make him agree to talk to you if Murata isn't around to mess with his head. At least try to hang on until then, okay?" 

A nod, as the carriage passed beneath the shadow of a portcullis and into the outer courtyard of Blood Pledge Castle. 

I should have known it wouldn't be that easy, though. It never is.


	3. Chapter 2

"No, I am _not_ letting you throw him in the dungeon!" I snapped. "Look at him, Gwendal! He can barely stand up! He is _not_ going to attack Yuuri or anyone else!" 

The object of this dispute leaned against the wall of the castle's grand entryway, watching us with violet eyes. And Gwendal was watching him with an expression that I thought was more than usually sour . . . although, truth be told, it was difficult to tell. 

"Put a guard on his room if you like, but I want him to be comfortable." I hadn't ever expected I would need to face down Gwendal von Voltaire on his own turf, but I was damned if I was going to give in now. No matter how much he glared at me. 

Gwendal's eyebrow began to twitch, and he raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "We don't have the men. Double watches on the castle perimeter, and most of Conrad's men are trying to keep order in the town or looking for Alazon. All I have in reserve are Wolfram's private squad." 

"Then use a couple of them," I said. 

"Shouri, this is not necessary. I will go to the dungeon, if Lord von Voltaire wishes. Indeed, in my present state, I doubt I will even—" 

"Hey, what's going on? Gwendal, Gunter's been looking for you—" Yuuri made it the rest of the way around the corner into the room, and stopped dead, staring at us. One of his escorts wasn't so restrained. 

" _Geneus!_ How did you get inside the castle?!" 

I stepped between Geneus and the newcomers, spreading my arms and hoping that Wolfram didn't skewer me by accident. My brother's little blonde fiancé had a bad habit of striking first and only asking questions when someone rubbed his face in them. It made him a good partner for Yuuri, who didn't have a suspicious bone in his body, but I wished he'd be less aggressive about it. 

"I _invited_ him here, Wolfram," I snapped. "He walked right in through the front door—with me helping him, because he's in no condition to do much for himself. Do you really think I would endanger Yuuri?" 

Well, that stopped Wolfram's mad lunge, anyway, but it didn't get him to put his sword away, and Conrad, lurking quietly in the background, likewise still had a hand on the hilt of his weapon, although he hadn't drawn. It was Yuuri—as usual—who broke the ice. 

"Well, that's a relief. One less person we have to look for—right, Gwendal?" Yuuri gave von Voltaire, who pretty much had his face buried in his hand at that point, an innocent smile. 

There was a sudden ruckus in the courtyard—carriage wheels, several voices speaking at once—and Gwendal's head snapped up. Conrad and Wolfram were staring in the direction of the door, and Conrad's hand had closed more firmly over the hilt of his sword. Geneus had moved too, turning so that his left shoulder, rather than his back, was to the wall, which left him facing the door too. His right hand, shadowed by his sleeve, rested on something at his belt. 

Then the doors burst open to show a familiar silhouette, and the fighting men all relaxed a hair. Just a hair, though, because Beryes was carrying someone else in his arms, and the blood was very clear against King Saralegui's white clothes. 

" _Sara!_ " Yuuri ran forward, jumping into the thick of things without a thought, as usual. Conrad, glued to his heels, offered me a wink as he strode past. 

"Calm yourself, your Majesty," Beryes said. "His life is not in danger." 

Yuuri slowed. Smiled. "Well, that's a relief." Then his expression sobered as much as it ever did. "What happened?" 

Beryes shook his head. "I found him hidden in a nest of crates in an alleyway behind a tavern. He'd been hit over the head and stabbed. It took me some time to heal him enough that I dared move him." 

"And the holy sword?" Conrad asked. 

"I saw no sign of it." 

I frowned. _Missing? Did Alazon take it again? But I really can't see her hurting Saralegui. She never laid a finger on him during that confrontation in the throne room, and given that and what Geneus said, it just doesn't fit._

"It may just have been a thief," Conrad was saying. "We'll have the town searched, Majesty." 

"I do not think so. The stab wound was from a sword, not a knife—a narrower blade than the holy sword." Beryes was frowning at nothing—but then, his expression was pretty stoic even at the best of times, as far as I'd been able to tell. He and Gwendal made a good pair. 

"Are you certain?" 

Beryes looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms. "It went almost right through," he said gruffly. 

Conrad winced very, very slightly. "I see. Beryes-san, I hate to ask this, but could it have been your sister?" 

Saralegui's retainer-slash-uncle shook his head again. "Alazon would have no idea what to do with a sword. Houjutsu was always her weapon of choice. This was someone else. Normally I would have assumed it was an assassin from Big Cimaron, but they are in considerable disarray at the moment—" He nodded to Conrad. "—and in any case, no assassin would have left him alive. No, this must have been about the sword." 

"It occurs to me that there is a question none of us have bothered to ask." 

Everyone turned to look at Geneus, even me, but it was Conrad who said, "Go on." 

"The holy sword was the most valued treasure of a land whose borders have been sealed for more than two thousand years. What, then, was it doing in the human lands in the first place?" 

I licked my lips. "You're saying that it was stolen." 

"I am saying that there may be those who do not wish it to return home." 

"So we have another enemy?" Gwendal's voice was a bit muffled, due to the hand he had over his face, but the words were clear enough. 

Geneus inclined his head. "I cannot be certain, of course, but after Shouri destroyed our headquarters, several rank-and-file members of the White Crow disappeared, people who were posted in various areas throughout Big Cimaron and the surrounding human nations. Unfortunately, I lacked the resources—physical, mental, and personnel—to investigate what was happening, and if Alazon did so, she did not confide in me." He paused, then added, "I think it unlikely that she did. The sword was already in her hands, and she believed she knew of someone who would be able to wield it. Under those circumstances, our organization was of no further value to her." 

"They probably just ran away because they didn't want to be bothered with your stupid secret society anymore," Wolfram muttered. 

"Some of them may well have done just that," Geneus admitted. "But not all twenty-three of them." 

_Twenty-three? That's a lot._ Conrad was frowning slightly, I saw, and Gwendal had taken his hand away from his face. His fingers were twitching in such a way that you could just about see the knitting needles. 

"Can you show us where these . . . losses . . . took place?" Gwendal's sour expression turned into an outright grimace of pain as he spoke—his headache must have spiked just then. 

"I can . . . but I do have a price." 

" _What?_ " Gwendal's near-bellow made everyone but him wince a little, and Yuuri made frantic soothing gestures. 

"Gwendal, it's okay, really," my brother said. "I'm sure he won't ask for anything we can't give. Right?" he added, with a smile for Geneus, who nodded. 

"My needs are quite modest, Your Majesty. I wish to speak to Shin'ou." I wondered if anyone but me noticed the spasm of pain that crossed his face as he spoke the name. "In private. For a few minutes only. Shouri has already promised me that he would arrange matters, but I . . . the truth is that I have very little time. Even if Beryes-san gives me what power he has left, I do not think I will see tomorrow's dawn." A mote of golden light slid out of the cuff of his glove and went floating up to the ceiling. Then through it. "I most likely do not have a soul of my own and it is unlikely that I will be reborn. Whatever I wish to accomplish before I dissolve into nothing, I must do _now_ , and I cannot . . . I _will_ not leave this world without seeing him again." 

"Geneus-san . . ." I could see the tears shining in Yuuri's eyes and fought down the contradictory impulses that always hit me when I saw him like that. One half of me thought it was cute, and the other wanted to punch out whoever was making him cry . . . Then his expression firmed. "Of course—I'll have someone take you up to the temple right after you're done with Gwendal." 

"Better send someone up there to get Murata out of the way, first." My glasses were slithering down my nose again—why couldn't anyone ever make the damned things so that they stayed in place?—so I pushed them up. 

Yuuri frowned, his puzzlement almost comical. "Murata? But why . . . ?" 

"Because he doesn't seem to want Geneus to get together with Shin'ou." I held up my hand. "I know, you think they should talk it out—but, Yuuri, Geneus doesn't have time. It's better just to keep them from meeting again." 

"Well, okay, but . . ." 

I sighed. "Just, _for this once_ , listen to your big brother, mmkay? You can talk Murata's ear off, but leave it until afterward. Gwendal-san . . . that map?" 

"We'll go up to my office, if . . . your friend . . . is able." 

"Physical exertion makes little difference to my condition," Geneus said. "As long as I use no houjutsu, my lifespan will remain the same." 

Gwendal strode off purposefully, and Geneus pushed himself away from the wall to follow. I fell in beside him, silently offering him my shoulder, and wasn't surprised that his hand came to rest on it, along with what I suspected was a fair fraction of his weight. He might have been trying to appear strong where the others could see him, but they hadn't found him in that damned alley. 

Somewhere along the way, without realizing it, I'd decided that I was going to stay by his side for as long as I could. I wanted to protect Yuuri . . . but Yuuri had plenty of other protectors. Geneus had no one but me. Even Shin'ou had turned his back on him. If I wasn't there, he was going to die alone. 

And so I hovered around the room, hands stuffed in my pockets, while Geneus marked a map with charcoal and answered Gwendal's questions. Von Voltaire glanced at me a few times, his scowl deepening slightly with each iteration, as if to say, _why are you still here?_ Geneus only met my eyes once, and that probably by accident, but when he did, he offered me the ghost of a smile. I was still damned tired, but I didn't care. One healing and one sleepless night weren't going to matter very much in the overall scheme of things. 

By the time Gwendal let him go, sunset had come but not quite—yet—gone, leaving the western sky an elegant shade of violet. The light was stronger around Geneus than anywhere else in the hallways I led him through, and every so often, a mote of golden radiance would evaporate from his skin. I pretended not to notice, but knowing what it meant . . . wrenched at me. 

He allowed me to hand him up into the carriage when we got there, and, once inside, fell back against the cushions looking drained. 

Once again, I bit back all the obvious, stupid, fussy things we say to someone who's ill— _Are you sure you're okay?_ and _Maybe you should rest a bit_ and _We can do this tomorrow_. As I had said to Yuuri, Geneus had no time, and I knew that resting wouldn't help him. It would just give more of his life time to leak away in motes of gold. 

I dug my fingers into the cushions on my side as the carriage started moving. My nerves were shrieking at me to do something, _anything_ , to help, but there was nothing I _could_ do. Except take him to Shin'ou. It wasn't the first time I've had to swallow down frustration, but I've never enjoyed it. Ever. Molesting the upholstery let a little bit of it out, in a controlled way no one else could see. 

"Four thousand years, and they still seem unable to improve the springs in the carriages," Geneus said quietly. "Odd, how things are so different and yet so much the same. The town is larger, the pattern of the fields is different, and yet the shape of the hills . . ." 

"You've missed it. This place. Shin Makoku." That wasn't a question—I could tell. 

A nod. "We fought and bled for the freedom and safety of this land. I lost many friends in the war against the Originators. In the end, it could be said that I lost them all." There it was again, that expression of raw pain. "However, this is my home. It always has been. If . . . I do have a soul . . . perhaps it will find its way back here, and finally be content." 

I couldn't find the words to comfort him, so instead I stretched out my hand and closed it around his, where it rested on his knee. I could tell from the way that his eyes widened slightly that he was startled, but not entirely displeased. He offered me another of those rueful smiles, and returned my grip with fingers that felt like they were nothing more than bare bone under his glove. 

And then the entire carriage shook, and not just in a "we've hit a pothole" kind of way. Outside, something screamed, and the box on wheels lurched . . . tilted . . . Then the world blurred, and I was flying, tumbling, hitting the ground in a hard roll with a bony body pressed against mine. 

I tried to draw Geneus in toward me, to cushion him as he'd once cushioned me after a similar fall. I guess I sort of succeeded, because it was _my_ back that slammed painfully into the rock and knocked the breath out of me, and it was Geneus who extricated himself right away and got to his feet. He had a knife in his hand, a curved weapon about a foot long engraved with the White Crow crest at the point where the blade met the handle, and I could see it clearly because something nearby was burning. _The carriage? Oh my—_

"Be ready," Geneus said, staring into the darkness. "That was not an accident. It was majutsu, and I cannot believe it was coincidence that they killed one of the horses first." 

"That's insane," I said hoarsely, getting to my feet. "Why would a Mazoku be trying to kill us?" 

"I do not know. Perhaps they want revenge for what I did to the city. Or perhaps someone is seeking the lives of those capable of wielding Alazon's holy sword." 

"But that would mean they're after Yuuri, too!" 

"And King Saralegui—but both of them have powerful guardians. It is _your_ survival with which we need to concern ourselves for the next little while. A dead man cannot help his brother. There are at least four of them, keeping themselves at the edges of the firelight, and I doubt they are done with us yet. I only hope they are less than competent in combat—physical fighting has never been my best skill." 

"I never thought I'd be glad you're good at jumping out of moving carriages," I said, dusting off my knees and reaching inside myself to bring my maryoku to the surface, as it was the only weapon I had. 

Geneus chuckled. "Indeed—although as I recall, you yourself are not completely untalented at such matters. Here they come," he added a shade more loudly, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see him spin the knife in his hand, an easy, practiced gesture despite his weakness. He was clearly better with it than he had claimed. I just hoped he was good enough. 

I shouldn't have bothered to worry. Someone—I didn't get a very clear look at him—came flying at us out of the darkness, and Geneus half-turned, took a tiny step, and moved his arm, all in one smooth motion, and the stranger screamed and stumbled a few steps more before collapsing face-down in the grass of the rocky hill-meadow. Then there were two more coming at us and I tried to draw my power in, using a variety of words I'd mostly learned from Bob's lackey Jose to curse the fact that there was no water to speak of nearby. Even the water table was so far down I could barely sense it. If only it had been raining . . . but all I had was what I could condense out of the air, or draw from the grass or the soil . . . or the corpse, I realized, and swallowed. Blood was full of water, as I'd seen earlier that day, and he didn't need his anymore. And the dragon, small and ruby-red, rose at my command just in time to wrap itself around one of the enemy and _squeeze_ while Geneus faced down his new opponent. 

We were back-to-back, so I didn't see what happened, but there was a sudden spray of additional blood from somewhere and someone screamed, too high-pitched for it to be Geneus even if he'd been the screaming type, so I grabbed the extra water and _pulled_. It resisted me for a moment, but then it came, and someone made a hoarse, horrible sound as I sent it to thicken up my dragon to rib-crushing proportions. I didn't want to turn around to see who "someone" was, or what I'd just done. 

I heard the wet, cracking noise of breaking bone just as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geneus pick someone else's knife off the ground and throw it in the general direction of the burning carriage. Another scream, and Geneus said, "If there were four, that was the last one. Now we need to get out of here before the fire spreads to the pastures." 

"We need to check on the driver," I said. "He might still be alive." 

Geneus sighed. "And I suppose reminding you that the driver was _not_ the target of this and that he will be perfectly safe once we are away from here will not get you to behave sensibly. It seems that a streak of foolishness is a necessary prerequisite to being chosen as a Maoh, even if your domain is to be Earth and not Shin Makoku. Very well, then. _Quickly._ " 

He trailed golden fireflies behind him as he strode off through the grasses. In the time it took me to recover from the argument that we _hadn't_ had, he'd made it halfway to the burning carriage. I let go of my dragon and jogged after him, catching up right on the edge of the road. 

One of the horses really was dead. The other was lying on its side, thrashing. Geneus took one look, muttered a word I couldn't quite make out, and leaned down to slash several leather straps. The horse wriggled, struggled to its feet, and ran off into the night, up the road to the temple. It nearly trampled the driver, who appeared to have been thrown clear and was lying on his side in the middle of the road, several feet in front of the burning carriage and the dead horse. 

I ran over to him. Bent down to shake his shoulder. "Hey! Are you okay?" I was pretty sure he was conscious—he didn't have that floppy kind of feeling to him that Yuuri had had when he'd knocked himself out against that tree in the park when he was six and I was not-quite-eleven—but he didn't move, didn't say anything. I tried again. "Hey!" 

" _Shouri!_ " 

A blast of something that wasn't majutsu slammed into the driver's body and lifted him six feet in the air, and as he cartwheeled through emptiness and slammed back down onto the roadbed, there was a _thunk_ and something buried itself in the dirt between two stones, only a few inches from my hand. It looked like a short, stumpy arrow . . . a crossbow bolt? The driver had been trying to kill me? And Geneus had . . . _Oh, hell . . ._

He was on his hands and knees in the road, a couple of feet from the nose of the dead horse. Gold motes were fountaining up and away from him, and I could see his sides heaving in and out as he fought for breath. The knife had fallen from his hands and lay discarded on the stones. I nearly cut myself on it as I crouched down beside him and tried to lift him up. 

It wasn't easy. There didn't seem to be much substance left inside that dark tunic. I pulled him into my arms, cradling him against my chest and trying to give him a little comfort, and it was like shifting a mostly-empty sandbag. 

"Why . . . ?" It was all I could do to force out the one word. I could feel my eyes stinging. 

"Stupidity," Geneus breathed. "I did not think, but only reacted. Rather . . . unlike me." 

"Hang on," I said. "We're not very far from the temple. I can still get you there in time." 

A breathy laugh. "No, you would be too vulnerable if you were to try to reach it carrying me. I may not have intended to make this sacrifice, but I will haunt you through your next three lifetimes if you waste it. Besides, if the temple truly is that near, he _knows_ I am here. I . . . do not think he ever . . . why would he care about a copy when he has the real one by his side?" 

"Isn't the whole point of making a copy to get something as good as the original?" I barely even knew what I was saying, but I could tell from the hitch in his laboured breathing and the way his eyes widened that I'd struck some kind of nerve. "Just because you came into existence after Murata doesn't make you inferior." 

Trembling, his hand rose to touch my face. I hadn't even realized I was crying until he brushed the tears away. "Shouri, you—" 

I couldn't hear the rest of what he said—there was no sound, even though his lips were moving. I was horrified to realize that I could see right through him. 

Frantically, I drew my power up and tried to extend my focus into him, but I couldn't feel anything. There was no water there, no blood . . . " _Geneus!_ " _No, no no nonoNO!_ I could feel a knot gathering in my stomach, a mixture of grief and rage and just plain frustration and the thwarted power that I'd drawn up to try to help him, and it built agonizingly and burst and the night lit up around me and I howled wordlessly as I felt something change. My vision blurred, and I swiped at my face, knocking a small object away. The action somehow made my surroundings come clear again. 

I looked down at what I held in my arms, saw dark clothes and golden sparks and the shadow of a man and the glowing pearl of a soul. "I will _not_ allow this," I said through gritted teeth, and used my power to reach for the soul and the shadow that surrounded it. I tried for the sparks, too, but they burned me like the fragments of fire they resembled and slipped away, so instead, I called to the countryside around me: "Heed me, spirits of water and wind, earth and flame! Obey the summons of the tribe which destroyed the Originators, and do as I bid you!" 

And they came, tiny motes of blue-white fire. Came thickly, even though this was not my country, and I had no right to summon them. And earth and water knew the pattern, and wind brought to me what I needed to build with, and fire lit it all up and helped me guide it into place. I didn't question what I was doing, or how I knew how to do it, until the figure in my arms was solid again, breathing steadily, heavy and warm and with a face, no longer wasted, that resembled a certain ancient painting. It was only then that I realized I was kneeling in the middle of a pillar of light. I could feel the power pouring from me, but there was no weakness, no sense of loss. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see something whipping about: locks of thick black hair, too long to be mine. And I didn't seem to be wearing my glasses, but I could see everything around me with painful clarity. What was this? _What's happening to me?_

" _Maoh._ " The word hadn't come from my throat, and I looked down to see that Geneus' eyes were open, and he was smiling in a way that I had never seen on him before, knowing, yet warm. Like the Great Sage's smile in a certain portrait. 

Some door inside me slammed shut again, and the light died. Vision blurred, I toppled forward into darkness with my fingers tangled in long, black hair.


	4. Chapter 3

"Shouri . . ." Someone was shaking me gently by the shoulder. I groaned, loosened one hand from whatever soft substance it was buried in, rolled over on my back, and fumbled for my glasses. Only when they were firmly in place on my nose did I open my eyes. 

The ceiling above me belonged to my room, or at least to the room I always slept in when I was at Blood Pledge Castle, but I didn't understand what my hand was caught in. Soft, but fibrous . . . 

I turned my head and saw Geneus, propped up on one elbow, watching me. My fingers were buried in the braid that trailed forward over his shoulder, and I blushed slightly and pulled my hand away. Given the topsy-turvy customs of this world, grabbing him by the hair might make him think I'd claimed to be his grandfather, or something. 

"What are you doing here?" The question came out maybe a little sharper than I intended, but Geneus didn't seem to be bothered by that. He did sit up, but not quickly, and he didn't move in my direction as I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and sat up myself. 

"Rather than down in the dungeons, you mean? I believe they were unable to convince you to let go of my hair. I certainly had no success in that regard, which was why I woke you. As for what I am doing here alive at all—" 

I shook my head. "I think I sort of remember that part. Even if I don't quite understand it." I had to have . . . manifested like Yuuri did when he was slinging magic around? _But that's never happened to me before . . ._ and I had wielded my maryoku at what I'd _thought_ was its full strength more than once. 

"Shin'ou and I were never able to make sense of it either, if that is any consolation." Geneus absently tugged his gloves straight. He looked a little odd, sitting there half-under the blankets while still fully dressed. "We had a number of theories, some of which I suppose I will now have to discard, since you are still only a Maoh's heir, rather than a king in your own right. This much I do know, however: now that you have accessed that power, you will grow into it, until you can tap it effortlessly. What you become in the midst of the pillar of light is your true self, your true form. It will take time, however. Shin'ou had already begun the process when I first met him, but it took several more years for his inner and outer selves to become fully congruent." His smile this time was warm and amused. "The longer hair suited you." 

Somehow, I managed not to choke. I'd never even considered growing my hair out. Actually, until I'd met Gwendal, I'd always thought long hair looked a bit effeminate, but that was one thing you absolutely could _not_ accuse Gwendal von Voltaire of being. Beryes either, for that matter. Günter, on the other hand . . . _Get a grip, Shouri._

I cleared my throat and said, "Sorry we didn't make it to the temple last night . . . or whenever that was." As a change of subject, it probably hadn't been the best choice, I realized belatedly. 

"It does not matter. I feel better now than I have since the day I woke to see Alazon staring down at me. I think this body you have given me is more . . . real, more solid than what she was able to create. And that means I have time, which is a more precious gift than you can possibly know. I no longer have to deal with the terror verging on madness that goes hand-in-hand with knowing that the last days of my life are slipping away. Given time, anything is possible—even Shin'ou coming spontaneously to his senses." 

I snorted, and absently peeled a section of my shirt away from my skin, where it was itchily stuck to me with dried sweat. I ended up wrinkling my nose at the smell, too. I had a spray of bloodstains across my side, and dirt ground into the knees of my trousers. I hoped the maids would be able to get all that out, or Mom was going to bore me to death with one of those lectures-cum-guilt-trips of hers that never quite tackled the subject head-on. In private, I called it her "nibbled to death by ducks" technique. The label had made Bob laugh, anyway, something that didn't happen all that often. 

"I stink," I said out loud. "And I've been wearing these clothes for at least—" A quick check through the window showed that the sun was pointing in an afternoonish direction. "—a day and a half. You're probably not much better off. Why don't we go down to the baths? We can talk as easily there as here, and I'll have the servants scare us both up something else to wear." I glanced around and found my shoes on the floor to my left, neatly lined up beside a pair of black boots. "These are probably yours," I said, handing the extra footwear to Geneus, who accepted them with a very slight quirk of one eyebrow and slid his legs over the far side of the bed to put them on. 

No one stopped us on our way through the castle, and nothing much seemed to have changed. Still, there was a bit of stiffness in me that didn't leave until, out of one window, I caught a glimpse of Yuuri with a catcher's mitt on his hand, tossing a baseball back and forth with someone I was at the wrong angle to see. So if something had happened, if Geneus and I hadn't been the only ones attacked, he'd come through it okay. Not that I'd had any real doubts. If he'd been hurt, there would have been guards outside my door and probably someone waiting beside the bed to give me the bad news. 

There was always a manservant minding the towels in the vestibule just outside the baths proper, and I told him to find us some fresh clothes. He took the instruction without argument, and as I carried an armload of towels through into the changeroom, I could see him reaching for the bellpull that would call someone else down to do the job, so he didn't have to leave his post. Yuuri never seemed to notice any of the dozens of servants and guards around the castle—well, beside Dakaskos and the quartet of maid-cooks who cleaned his rooms and served the royal table—but I always did. I just couldn't take them for granted, somehow. 

It was a relief to get rid of my stiff and stinking shirt, but as I turned to toss it at a laundry bin, I saw that Geneus had frozen in place mostly still clothed. His gloves were on the floor at his feet, and he was tracing his right forefinger over the back of his left hand. 

He seemed to sense me looking at him, and jerked his head up sharply. "Shouri, what colour are my eyes?" 

"They're—" _Purple_ , I almost said automatically. Then I looked again. And blinked. "—black," I said slowly. 

"Black," he repeated. "And this scar . . . I took it during the war, nearly four thousand years ago, protecting Shin'ou from the Originators' troops." His hands began to move again, stripping off his long tunic. "This one, from a human assassin who thought he would rid Shin Makoku of both king and sage," he said, tracing his fingers over a long, pale line on his shoulder. 

The gesture was graceful, and I found myself gritting my teeth in an attempt to control completely inappropriate thoughts, because I didn't think I'd ever seen a more beautiful man. 

I'd known that I was bi since I'd hit puberty, but it hadn't been something that a man hoping to go into politics in Japan could afford to act on, so I'd made a determined effort to choke off the less-conventional half of my sexuality. Part of the reason I'd taken to playing all those dating sims was to make sure that part of my mind stayed on women, and I'd only ever dated girls. Jerked off while carefully picturing girls in my head, even if they weren't what had originally made me hard. I'd even thought I'd succeeded in making myself purely heterosexual, _normal_ , until Yuuri and the others had been shipping The Mirror at the Bottom of the Sea back to Shin Makoku and Little Shouri had risen to salute when I'd seen Conrad standing mostly naked in the wading pool in our back yard. Fortunately, in the chaos, no one had noticed I had an erection, but since then I'd had to admit that I maybe wasn't quite as monosexual as I'd been trying to become. Instead, I was in the closet and didn't dare open the door even where no one from Japan was likely to see me. If I did, I might get . . . too used to it. 

Thankfully, my libido was pretty picky, or I'd never have been able to handle Shin Makoku. I wasn't turned on by big, buff men like Gwendal or near-children like Wolfram, and Günter's personality made him more disturbing than arousing to be around. Conrad was just slender enough to be dangerous, but I'd so far managed to avoid running into him again when he was less than fully dressed. 

It would have been nice if Yuuri's bachelor court had run more to girls, though. Of the handful of Mazoku women I'd encountered in this world, half were servants, people I couldn't have come on to without feeling a little guilty about abusing my nebulous position as the Maoh's brother, and the others had _scary_ personalities. Well, okay, I could have gone for Gisela despite how she acted in Sergeant Mode, but it was pretty obvious that she was pining after someone who wasn't at the castle, and again, I would have felt guilty about prying her away from him. Or her. Whichever. 

If I'd let myself realize before what Geneus was hiding under those long tunics, though . . . Well, I wouldn't have jumped him, but I would have _wanted_ to. He had the body of an alabaster Greek statue I'd seen in the textbook for that art appreciation course the university was making me take, all long, lean muscles and near-flawless pale skin. Just gorgeous. Combined as it was with that fine-boned face and sharp mind, almost irresistible. 

Little Shouri liked what I was seeing a little too well, and I licked dry lips and tried to imagine Bob in a gorilla suit. I was going to have to take my pants off within the next few minutes, and the last thing I needed was a hard-on. 

"I can feel the scar I received from that sand-bear pulling slightly at my calf," Geneus continued, as though he hadn't noticed my fugue. "And perhaps . . ." He cupped his hands palm-up in front of himself and closed his eyes. " _Come to me,_ " he whispered, and the air in the room trembled as fox-fire danced above his fingertips. 

I'd realized not long after I'd met him that Geneus had many different smiles, ranging from the sharklike expression of pleasure he sometimes displayed when one of his plans fell perfectly into place, to the sad, self-deprecating one he used to hide pain, but I had never before seen this one. It was wide and joyful, and when he opened his eyes, I would have sworn that there were pinpoints of light burning inside them. It was beautiful . . . and I had to force myself to think of Bob and gorilla suits again. 

"Shouri," he said. "I do not pretend to understand how you have done this, but thank you. Thank you for giving me back my life, my body, my power, and my home. It is a debt that I will never be able to repay." And he made me the most damned courtly bow I'd ever seen, right there, dressed only in a pair of battered trousers and with his braid unraveling down his back. 

"Um . . . you're welcome," I said, mind racing. I mean, I'd figured out that I'd somehow managed to rebuild his body as a perfect duplicate of the original Great Sage's (except that he still had the facial markings that Alazon had put on him, and exactly how did _that_ work?), but I wasn't sure what I wanted from him in return, if anything. The first thing that came to mind was something I had to shove right back _out_ of my head as quickly as possible. Finding out what his mouth tasted like or what that smoothly muscled torso would feel like under my hands was just not on the agenda, much less— 

"Hey, hey, you two, stop hogging the change room," said a nasal voice as someone pushed through the curtain, shattering the moment . . . which, really, was almost a relief. 

I sighed. I should have figured that Josak or someone like him would turn up sooner or later—whatever _I_ might think, _Gwendal_ probably still had Geneus pegged as a dangerous intruder. 

I touched my chin, and said, "By the way, Josak, can I borrow one of your razors again?" 

"I'll see what I can do, Shouri-sama." He didn't use the honourific in a way that made me feel like he meant it . . . but then, Josak never did. "Is that the only question you have for me?" 

"Of course not." I turned my back to everyone and stripped my pants off, then quickly wrapped a towel around my waist, hoping it would be enough to conceal any more unauthorized independent action from Little Shouri. "What happened after we left the castle . . . last night?" 

"The night before," Josak supplied, balling up the tunic-vest he always wore when he wasn't in a dress and tossing it at one of the laundry bins. He muttered "Shin'ou's left tit" when he realized he'd missed. "You were out for nearly two days." 

"Josak, stop stalling and tell me what happened." 

"It was pretty nasty." Josak's tone was . . . well, as serious as I had ever heard it, even during that mess with the boxes. "First mutiny we've had in more than a hundred years. No one was quite sure who was supposed to be fighting who. Lot of injuries. Some deaths, like the three Beryes had to carve up to keep them away from Saralegui. Wolfram and I just about had to sit on the young master while Conrad was out helping to clear the last of them out of the halls. And then, just when everything had started to quiet down again, we saw the pillar of light out by the road. We thought at first that the young master had gotten out there somehow. Günter freaked out, fell against a door and knocked himself out for about ten minutes, and Gwendal took a squad up and found the two of you lying unconscious on the ground along with assorted corpses, including one that looked like he'd been dried over a slow fire. After that, it didn't exactly take the Great Sage—oh, sorry—to figure out that you'd been a target, too." 

"Then they are hunting those who can wield the holy sword," Geneus said, his expression now sober as he flicked a glance at me. 

"Sure looks that way." Josak's thong underwear landed in the hamper on the first try, and he walked over to the wall, completely nude and unselfconscious, to rummage around on a shelf. "Lord Gwendal wants to tighten up security again, but that's kind of difficult when you don't know who you can trust—one of the men who turned on us was from his personal squad. The best we can do as assign you, the young master, and our royal guest extra bodyguards." 

"Let me guess," I said. "I get you." 

"Me and Günter, at least for the time being," Josak said, and I repressed a groan. "Conrad and Wolfram will be staying with the young master, and Gwendal's assigned himself to Saralegui, at least until Hube gets here." 

"Just try not to prank Günter while you're on the job," I said, feeling a headache coming on. 

"I'm wounded, Shouri-sama—are you suggesting that I'm ever less than serious about my work?" Josak's rummaging had turned up two straight razors and a shaving mug, and he offered me the more battered of the former. I grimaced and took it; safety razors hadn't been invented in this world yet, much less electric ones, so I'd get nothing better. So far, I'd managed to keep from cutting my own throat by accident while shaving, but it had been a near thing once or twice. 

"I'm more worried about you disrupting Günter's concentration," I said. It wasn't quite a lie. Günter was flighty and weird at the best of times, and a blow to the head couldn't have improved him much. 

"Under the circumstances, I doubt Lord von Christ's emotional reflective disorder will cause any problems, if that is what you are worried about," Geneus said. 

"His what? But if it has something to do with the reason he's always bursting into tears or raptures, then yeah, that is what I'm worried about," I admitted. 

"Emotional reflective disorder is a condition that occasionally affects Mazoku with a strong bond to wind. The spirits pick up Lord von Christ's emotions, and amplify them and reflect them back at him. Which makes him feel everything more strongly, and then they reflect _that_ back as well . . ." Geneus made an expressive gesture. "The condition can be controlled by concentration on the part of the afflicted, and according to all reports, Lord von Christ does have excellent control when he deems it necessary. It is only when he is relaxed that he will tend to . . . behave oddly." 

"And anyway, we'll be taking alternate shifts, so I'm not going to have many chances to rile him up," Josak added easily. "Really, we think you're the least important target. After all, you were only able to raise an illusion of the sword's power. Saralegui brought up the real thing." He slapped a thick vine that coiled up along the wall, as though to cement his point. 

"Shouri handled the sword in the middle of Big Cimaron, without full access to his power, and while it was still showing damage from years of neglect," Geneus said. "If he were to take it up again here and now, the outcome might be different." 

"Are you serious?" 

I cleared my throat, because I really didn't want to think about it. "I'm going to go rinse off." 

Josak gave me a little wave. "Take your time." 

"If any assassins crawl in through the windows, I'll send them your way," I added as I started toward the curtain. _Does Geneus really make him so nervous that he feels he needs to keep an eye on him even when he's supposed to be guarding me?_

Josak just chuckled. "That's the spirit, Shouri-sama. If you could spare the time to wrap them up neatly in water dragons, that would be very helpful, too." And, more seriously, "We didn't take any prisoners last night." 

"Not even one?" Geneus' question was sharp, and I glanced at him—then quickly away again, because he was just as unselfconsciously nude as Josak, and even the quick glimpse had made Little Shouri stir again. 

"Not even one," Josak agreed. "Lord Gwendal was furious when he discovered we didn't have anyone to question. He's busy hunting down the friends and family members of the ones whose identities we actually know right now, but so far none of them's been able to tell him anything useful. The only commonality we've been able to find so far is that the ones that attacked your carriage are all from the south-west—mostly from Radford and Spitzweg, and a few from the south end of Christ. Lord Gwendal's beside himself wondering what the hell his uncle is up to this time, but Lord Stoffel claims to be innocent for once." 

Soft sounds of bare feet on the stone floor. I guessed that meant that they'd finished their discussion for the time being, and pushed the rest of the way through the curtain and into the shower room. 

Like any good Japanese bath, the baths at Blood Pledge Castle had separate areas for washing off and for soaking. I set my glasses aside on one of the shelves intended for soap and uncorked a lion-head faucet. Rinsing the dried sweat off under the shower of warm water felt heavenly, although I could have done without the soap being lavender-scented. And for once I was grateful for being nearsighted, because it meant I couldn't see Geneus as anything other than a pale blur. Pale blurs didn't interest Little Shouri. 

I managed, one more time, to shave with a straight razor without slitting my throat, although I did end up with a bit of a cut just forward of my right ear. Still, not my worst session by a considerable margin: I did seem to be getting better with practice. 

"I'm surprised you can get that much hair washed out that quickly," Josak said suddenly. 

I couldn't actually see Geneus shrug, but it was kind of in his tone of voice. "It is a skill like any other—it can be acquired through practice. Even two thousand years ago, when I was living in Cimmaron as a human, I wore my hair longer than was fashionable for a man in that time and place." 

"I'm surprised yours isn't longer, Josak," I said, ducking under the water to rinse off my chin. "I'd think it would come in handy for your work." 

"It would and it wouldn't. I'm not always dressing up as somebody's maid, y'know, and when you're on the run, long hair can really get in the way. The one time I tried growing it out, I ended up playing hide-and-seek with the border guards in the desert on the edge of Big Cimaron for nearly three weeks. It was in such nasty shape afterwards that I had to cut it off again. After that, I decided it would be a lot less hassle just to get a wig made if I ever needed one. Shaving my legs whenever I'm working is enough of a pain. It's just about the only time I wish I were a purebred Mazoku—most of them have next-to-no body hair. Although there've been a couple of times, when things got really crazy, that the Cimaronese border guards've started strip-searching people . . ." 

Little Shouri twitched as I remembered that brief glimpse I'd had of Geneus in the nude: he'd had pubic hair, but he'd been pretty smooth everywhere else, as far as I'd been able to tell. And really, I didn't have much body hair myself, and only enough of a beard to make me need to shave every two or three days. 

"Thanks for the razor, by the way." 

"You're welcome—in fact, you might as well keep that one until you get around to buying one of your own. I only keep it down here in case I forget my good one." 

I'd never intended to stay in Shin Makoku long enough that I'd need to go shopping for toiletries. Somehow, I always did seem to end up coming back here, though, even when I had to ambush Yuuri to do it. Maybe, now that I'd broken through into what Geneus claimed was my full power, I'd be able to learn to work the transportation spell myself. It would certainly make it easier to get Yuuri to return if he fell into a blue funk again . . . and if I was being truthful with myself, there was something about Shin Makoku that made it feel like home in a way Earth never had. Something in my genes, or maybe something about maryoku and the way it interacted with the energies here. Something that made me want to come back for more reasons than just to protect my baby brother. 

"Thanks," I said to Josak, and folded the razor's blade back into its battered handle. If I was going to buy my own, maybe I could find some soap that didn't smell like lavender to go along with it. 

When I got my glasses back on, Josak was sitting on a bench running his own razor up and down his legs, and Geneus had vanished. I found him on the other side of the third curtain, sunk up to his collarbones in the water of the hot pool, with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, his hair spread over the marble edging the pool like a curtain of black silk. I slid in to join him, doing my best not to see past the reflections on the surface of the water. I didn't blame him for looking like he was about to doze off. It really was nice, with the water just on the edge of being too hot . . . and for whatever reason, the silence was comfortable, too. It was as though I was with an old friend. 

Really, I'd never had all that many friends. Well, when I was a little kid, maybe, but that had been in the States. I hadn't had any contact with those people since my parents had moved the family to Japan, and while I'd adapted to our new home, I'd somehow never gotten around to putting down certain kinds of roots. I got along well enough with people when I wanted to, but there had always been something missing from those relationships. They felt . . . shallow, I guess. I was close enough to some of the people in my classes at the university to spend an evening with them eating junk food and watching bad movies, but there was no one I could have talked to about anything important even if I hadn't had to be circumspect about what being Bob's heir really meant. 

Geneus was different, though. He understood me without needing to ask, and . . . I guess we just clicked. I wanted to spend more time with him. I'd just have to jerk off more often while carefully picturing Keiko to ensure that I didn't have to blindfold myself whenever he was in the room. 

"Hey, you two, if you fall asleep, I'm not carrying you back upstairs." 

Geneus opened his eyes. "I think we have both had enough sleep for the time being, Josak-san." 

"I dunno—sometimes when I come back from a mission, I sleep for three days solid." Josak laid his razor down beside the pool before jumping in with a splash. I swore in English and Spanish and got my arm up to protect my glasses just a split-second too late, leaving them spotted with water droplets. 

"Am I truly so dangerous that you need to bring a weapon into the baths with you?" Geneus asked, with a nod in the direction of the razor. I blinked. _Is that why? I didn't even realize. I guess I'm still not used to the idea that I could be in physical danger anywhere in this world, even in a place that's supposed to be safe._

"More like I'm worried about more mystery assassins dropping in through the windows," Josak said. "Although I'd prefer not to get that much blood in the water. Last time that happened, they had to drain the entire pool to get it out." 

"That must have taken forever," I said, taking my glasses off and shaking them. A few of the droplets flew off, but not enough to really clear them. "Damn. Anyone got a towel?" 

"Maryoku can be applied to mundane tasks as well, Shouri," Geneus said. I blinked nearsightedly at him. _Maryoku. Right. Why didn't I think of that?_

_Because I'm a little afraid,_ I answered myself after a moment. _Is_ any _use of my powers going to invoke that crazy pillar of light thing now, or is it just going to happen if I'm really emotional?_ Yuuri got it every time, but he never used maryoku casually. He only invoked his powers when he needed them desperately, and when he did, he seemed to have little control. _Probably because he never practices._

I licked my lips. _If I don't try, I'm always going to wonder, and I might freeze up when it actually_ is _important. Right. Okay. Here goes nothing._

A few droplets of water. It was almost as delicate a manipulation as the healing. I breathed out. Extended my focus as Ulrike had taught me. Breathed in. Pulled the water off the lenses and into the air. 

No pillar of light manifested itself. I was just me, as I relaxed my will and let the hovering droplets fall back into the pool. 

Geneus nodded. "I thought when you healed the girl that your control was impressive for someone who came into his maryoku so late. Now I am certain of it." 

I gave him a sharp look as I pushed my glasses into place. "That was a test?" 

"I did not intend it as such, although I will admit to a bit of curiosity." 

I couldn't, I'd discovered, easily stay angry with him when his smile was that warm. Unfortunately, that meant I was looking right at him when he rose slightly further out of the water, laying his arms along the edge of the pool, and _that_ meant an interested twitch from Little Shouri. Quickly, I looked away again. 

"I've spent hours drilling with Ulrike to get that control," I said. "It . . . wasn't exactly spontaneous." 

Josak snickered, no doubt remembering the same series of events as I was. "Well, at least you haven't trashed Blood Pledge Castle again. And you're blushing. I didn't think Ulrike was your type." 

I sighed. Sometimes, Josak had the sense of humour of a preadolescent. "No, Ulrike _isn't_ my type. I don't go for kids. She's no more attractive to me than you are." 

"Well, that's harsh," Josak said, feigning a pout. "And here I thought you were just waiting for me to dash in like a knight in shining armour and sweep you off your feet." 

"Knights in shining armour don't wear frilly aprons," I said . . . although there _had_ been that incident with Conrad, my mother's borrowed apron, and our bathtub. Of course, that apron had at least been plain. 

"Hah. You know, it's kind of sad. Here we are, three single men in the prime of life, and not one of us has a girl- or boyfriend to brag to the others about, much less a real relationship to get teased about." 

I rolled my eyes. "Give me time, Josak. I'm only nineteen. What's your excuse? For that matter, how do you know Geneus doesn't have anyone?" Not that I thought anyone who was terminally ill and getting ordered around by Alazon would have had much time for romance, but I was getting tired of being Josak's only target. 

Josak tilted his head. "Well, there's no record of the Great Sage getting married or leaving any descendants, any more than Shin'ou did, so between that and his circumstances, I sort of assumed . . ." 

"You assumed correctly," Geneus said. "There has been no one since Alazon revived me. As for Shin'ou, I do not doubt that he would have married eventually, had fate been kinder. He left no descendants because the sexual act he most enjoyed required a male partner, which somewhat precluded the possibility of illegitimate offspring." 

Josak blinked, then started to laugh. "Did you really just say that Shin'ou, founder of our country and the second most powerful Mazoku in history . . . likes to be on the bottom? Oh, man, I have _got_ to tell Stoffel that! The top of his head will blow right off!" 

For me, it was no laughing matter, because I'd seen the flash of pain in Geneus' eyes. _You_ bastard _, Shin'ou. "A male partner"—like your most trusted friend. He remembers you as the person to whom he gave his body, his mind, and his heart. No_ wonder _he was so broken up when I found him in that alley. I don't know if there are words for just how badly you betrayed him._

I cleared my throat as the laughter died down. Half-turned to face Geneus, ignoring Little Shouri's inappropriate interest in the hope that it would just go away. "Someone once told me that remembering your past lives was more like watching a—" _Oops, they don't have movies here, so how do I . . . ? Damn Murata for picking that analogy, anyway._ "—a play where you really sympathized with the main character, rather than remembering something that had actually happened to _you_ , but I get the impression . . ." I couldn't finish the question, not when I could see the way Geneus' eyes were clouding over. _You already pretty much know the answer, don't you, Shouri? And he's already suffered enough._

Geneus did answer, though, in a surprisingly even tone of voice. "The incarnations between the Great Sage and Geneus Stornway of Cimmaron are like that for me, I suppose, although I always preferred the analogy of a profusely illustrated novel. Only the first and the last memories truly . . . feel like they are mine. The others are interesting in their way, but not . . . affecting." _Not painful_ was probably what he really meant, although I doubted he would ever say it. 

"Huh," Josak said, having finally caught his breath after his laughing fit. "Well, I don't know about you two, but I'm turning into a prune." He stood, giving me an eyeful of his crotch that was going to leave me with an inferiority complex I might never quite eradicate—the man was hung like a _horse_ , making me wonder how the hell he could ever pass as a woman for even thirty seconds. In other words, when I got up too, it was more-or-less in self-defense. 

The three of us trooped back past the showers and into the changeroom, where our discarded clothes had quietly vanished from the hampers. Josak had brought a change of his own with him, leaving Geneus and I to investigate two piles of cloth lying on a convenient bench. I recognized the first stack right away as the clothing I had borrowed on my first visit to Shin Makoku—I think it had been Conrad's, once upon a time. The other stack consisted of a long, grey-blue tunic, dark blue trousers . . . and a set of black thong underwear, which Geneus held up with his eyebrows raised. 

"I take it those weren't traditional here four thousand years ago," I said, almost laughing at the expression on his face . . . and carefully keeping my gaze to points above his collarbones. 

"They were used by one particular southern tribe—the same ones with that idiotic custom of slapping someone to propose marriage, to prepare the woman for the agony of childbirth or some such nonsense. Still, I suppose one can become accustomed to anything." 

I couldn't watch as he put them on. If I had, I would never have been able to pack Little Shouri into my pants. When I turned around again, he was mostly dressed, fastening his belt with its empty knife sheath around his waist. 

"Oh, by the way, Geneus-san," Josak said in a tone that was just a hair too offhand to come across as natural, "Lord Gwendal has your knife. You might want to ask him about it." 

"Perhaps I will . . . although it might be better if I went unarmed for now." Something about Geneus' smile seemed not quite right, this time. "Blood Pledge Castle is well-defended, and I do not intend to leave it today." 

"Well, there's plenty to amuse yourself with here." Josak's tone was still that little bit off. "The library, maybe?" 

"I had intended to retrieve something, assuming that it still exists and is where I left it. For all I know, the true Great Sage might have had it removed or destroyed, although I cannot imagine why he would bother." The slightly-wrong smile vanished with that last sentence, leaving something cold and deadly behind. 

_What would it be like to hate someone so much, and at the same time know that, in a sense, that person was more like you than your identical twin?_

"Huh. Well, the layout of the castle has probably changed a bit in the past four thousand years, so why don't I find someone to help you? I think Dakaskos is free," Josak added with a grin. 

"There is no need to conceal your motives, Josak-san. I know your superiors have ordered that I be watched. I would do the same, in their place." 

"Well, that's easy enough, then. Shouri-sama . . ." 

"I know, I know, I have to stick with you." Or vice-versa, or something. "Let's go find Dakaskos." 

The bald little man with the oversized nose wasn't that difficult to locate. He wasn't all that happy with his new assignment either, despite Geneus' quiet promise not to mistreat him. Dakaskos trailed behind the taller man as they left, headed for one of the less-used parts of the castle. 

I waited until they were out of earshot before turning to Josak. "Think your horse can carry both of us at once?" 

"For a while, yes. Why?" 

"Because, after last night, I don't want to mess around with a carriage just to get to the temple." 

Josak gave me a long look. Then he sighed. "Well, it's open ground in broad daylight. Just give me a few minutes." 

We made it to the temple without incident this time, although a shiver ran up my spine as we passed the charred spot in the middle of the road. Someone had dragged the carcass of the dead horse to one side, but it was still pretty damned visible. At least the human bodies and the burnt-out carriage were gone. After that, getting off the damned horse and discovering I'd chafed a layer of skin off the insides of my thighs—or at least, that was what it felt like—was anticlimactic. 

Unlike Blood Pledge Castle, the temple had an interior layout that actually made sense, and I found my way to the inner sanctum easily. The guardswomen flanking the door nodded to me as I reached for the latch, then stopped. There were voices coming from inside. Shin'ou's was immediately recognizable, although I couldn't make out what he was saying, and the other . . . definitely wasn't Ulrike's. 

Well, confronting both of them at once would just make things quicker. I let my hand finish its interrupted motion, opened the door, slipped inside, and shut it again. 

"Shibuya's brother?" A sigh. "I had a feeling you were going to turn up here sooner or later. I—" 

I ignored the voice, marching straight up the center aisle of the inner sanctum to where Shin'ou was casually perched on the edge of Hell's Fire in the Frozen Tundra. 

Here, in the place of his greatest power, his jaw was solid enough to make a satisfactory target for my fist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea why Shouri has a nickname for his prick. It just turned out that way.
> 
> And I know that the anime claims at one point that Wolfram is Shin'ou's descendant, which is inconsistent with him having died childless . . . but that line is spoken by Yuuri, who doesn't have the strongest grasp of Shin Makoku history, and fairly early in the series at that, so I think it's reasonable that he could have been mistaken. And that's the _only_ relevant line in the anime that I was able to find—the Shin'ou/Rufus thing is based on a drama CD or something.


	5. Chapter 4

Shin'ou sprawled back across the empty Forbidden Box, touching his jaw and looking at me with narrowed eyes while the Great Sage of Shin Makoku . . . hovered, apparently at a loss for words. 

Slowly, I turned to face Murata. "If that body of yours were a little bit older, I'd beat you to a pulp, friend-of-my-brother. What you tried to do was nothing short of monstrous. And I bet you know that if Yuuri had known what you had in mind, he would have forbidden it, too. That's why you skimmed over it with a cryptic remark about cleaning up your mistakes." 

Murata adjusted his glasses. "Really, that was all I intended to do. I didn't think—" 

"No, you didn't," I snapped. "Unusual for you, I admit, but you picked the worst possible time to do it. Were you really that eager to murder someone?" 

"It wouldn't be the first time." Murata had turned his head so that the reflections off his glasses kept me from seeing his eyes. It was a trick I'd have to remember, even if it was more than a little irritating right now. 

"Don't give me that crap. It's pretty obvious _Ken Murata_ has never killed anyone, and you've said any number of times that you don't really identify with your past lives. It's a shame Geneus isn't like you. If he didn't perceive himself and the Great Sage as being the same person, he'd probably hurt a lot less right now." 

"Is that true?" Shin'ou spoke up for the first time. He'd sat up again, and there was a nice big purple mark starting to show on the side of his chin. I hadn't known ghosts could bruise, but in this case, I took some pleasure in the proof that they could. 

Murata frowned. "It . . . might be," he said slowly. "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how my past incarnations remembered each other, and it's a pretty subtle distinction to make at one remove, anyway. But Geneus and the Great Sage were an awful lot alike in basic personality. I can see how their memories might have . . . resonated, in a way that they usually don't. And Geneus was a pretty lonely person. He spent a lot of time remembering." 

"I was an idiot for letting you persuade me to go along with you." Shin'ou winced as he spoke. Well, if his jaw was sore, it wasn't any more than he deserved. 

"I really was just trying to clean up an old mistake! He was . . . created out of my regrets . . . so I . . . " 

"I hope you don't ever manage to have children," I said disgustedly. "You may have had an inadvertent hand in Geneus' creation, but that doesn't give you the right to murder him. Not even if he was already dying. In fact, I would say the opposite. You _owe_ him for having screwed up and created the situation that made him Alazon's toy." 

"Stop talking like he's a person," Murata said. "You know as well as I do that he's just something Alazon put together. A tool. He doesn't have a real soul." 

"You're wrong." I was beyond disgust or simple anger by that point. "I _held his soul in my hands_ , at the center of that pillar of light, and it sure as hell _felt_ real. And who in hell gave you the authority to judge souls, anyway? You're not a god. I don't even believe that he—" I jerked my chin in Shin'ou's direction. "—is really a god. Claiming a living person is a thing just because his existence is inconvenient for you, that's . . . worthy of the Originators." It was the nastiest way I could think of to put it. 

"Admit it, old friend," Shin'ou said. "You messed this one up, and we both owe this man Geneus an apology." 

Murata's shoulders slumped. "Okay, maybe I did screw up just a little. Give me a few minutes to adjust. I'm . . . not used to being wrong about anything this important. Not anymore." 

"Having four thousand years' worth of memories doesn't make you omniscient, friend-of-my-brother," I said dryly. 

"No, I think you have to lose your body permanently for that," a certain blonde pseudo-god contributed. "And even now, I can't _pay attention_ to everything at once, so being able to _see_ it all isn't really much help." He wiggled his jaw again. "For instance, I didn't know you had such a good right hook." 

_Neither did I._ I wasn't about to say so, though. "I don't suppose you've been looking in the right places to be able to tell us what we're up against." 

Shin'ou's grimace was contaminated by a wince. "Not really. Even if I saw something relevant at some point in the past four thousand years, its relevance wasn't obvious at the time, if you see what I mean. I _am_ fairly certain that we're talking about a large conspiracy, not all of it inside Shin Makoku." 

"Seisakoku had a lot of enemies at one time," Murata added. "They spooked all the other human nations like you wouldn't believe. I actually died in a war against them once, about twenty-eight hundred years ago. They wiped the country I was fighting for off the map." 

"So you think this is some sort of conspiracy against Alazon's kingdom." 

"Mmm, it's more of a guess at this point. It's the best fit for the facts we have, but we don't have nearly enough of them yet. Alazon might have told Geneus something, but you'll have to get it out of him yourself—I doubt he'll talk to me," the Great Sage admitted with a sigh. "Even if I hadn't talked Shin'ou into trying to kill him, he sees me as having usurped the place that's rightfully his. The ironic part is that I'd share it with him if I could." 

"So give it up and let him have it," I said. Testing him. 

"Oh, no. I'm not selfless enough to exile myself to Earth for the rest of this lifetime, which is the only thing I can think of that might work. Besides, do you really think Yuuri would let me go?" His smile was the slightly goofy grin of the teenaged boy he appeared to be on the outside, but behind his glasses, his eyes looked like Geneus'. They had the same depth to them, and the same pain. "I think he and I are both just going to have to settle for less than we'd really like to have. I can't undo the past and make him the one who helped unseal the boxes . . . and even if that were possible, the outcome would be different. He wouldn't trust Yuuri's ability to fix things." 

"And just what is it that you want and don't have, friend-of-my-brother?" 

The darkness in Murata's eyes went away suddenly, as though he'd drawn some sort of internal curtain. "A girlfriend, for one thing," he said cheerfully. "And ten billion yen. And all the shrimp-flavoured instant ramen I can eat!" 

I blinked. "The shrimp-flavoured stuff is disgusting." 

"Do you think so? I guess you and Yuuri really are brothers, because he says exactly the same thing!" 

I glanced at Shin'ou out of the corner of my eye, and saw him smiling indulgently . . . on the side that wasn't bruised, anyway. Something in his expression answered the question I hadn't known I was asking: he and Murata shared an easy friendship, but they weren't lovers. If sex was even possible for Shin'ou in his present state, he'd find a different partner. Maybe even Geneus, if the two of them reconciled. 

I swallowed. The mental image of the two of them together, doing what Geneus had implied Shin'ou enjoyed . . . Not only did Little Shouri sit up and take notice the moment it popped into my head, but I would have sworn I felt a slight, pleasant tingling sensation in my backside. 

Damn it, something about this place was skewing me. Back in my own world, I'd been easily able to dispel whatever sexual daydreams I might have about other men just by concentrating on naked girls, but I couldn't get rid of the image of Geneus' long hair, unbound, moving over Shin'ou's body . . . It didn't help that the long-dead king had pretty much the same build as Conrad, either, putting him squarely in the "dangerously attractive" zone. 

They were both _hot_ , and if I didn't get that picture out of my head fast, Little Shouri was going to burst the buttons on my fly. _Bob in a gorilla suit. That slob I had to stand beside on the cross-campus bus the day before I came here, the one who smelled like he hadn't had a bath in the last ten years. The carnivorous marine worms that girl who was majoring in zoology insisted on showing me, the ones that looked like someone's guts in miniature._ The worms finally did the trick, and I breathed a sigh of relief . . . only to realize Murata was watching me with those knowing eyes again. Fortunately he didn't say anything, or I really _would_ have punched him, and never mind that he was a good four years younger than me. In body, anyway. 

"Shrimp-flavoured ramen," I muttered in disgust, and shook my head, just as though none of those thoughts had ever crossed my mind. 

"Well, if you want more than that for supper, it's probably about time you were getting back to the castle," Murata said. 

"What about you?" 

"Well, I _had_ been intending to stay up here and eat with Ulrike and the other priestesses, but maybe it would be better if I went down, at that. There's someone I need to talk to." 

Murata had come up in a carriage, and my abused thighs thanked me for joining him in it on the way down, while Josak circled, playing lookout and keeping an eye on the driver. There were no ambushes or sudden mutinies on this trip, though. No conversation either, because Murata and I were staring out opposite windows. I don't know what he was thinking about, but I was turning over things in my head, trying to make bits and pieces of information fit together, and realizing that there was another question that everyone had forgotten to ask. 

_Where is Alazon?_ Somehow, I couldn't believe that the queen of Seisakoku was lying dead in the street somewhere—she couldn't use the sword herself, so I doubted the conspiracy gave a damn about her. So where was she hiding, and what was she doing? Trying to get the sword back? Did she know who she needed to get it back from? 

Had anyone asked Saralegui if he'd seen his attackers? Gwendal would have, surely. Or Conrad. They were both pretty sharp about things like that. 

What did we really know, anyway? The sword had been stolen. Someone had attacked me, Yuuri, Saralegui. Someone had killed several members of the White Crow, which might or might not have been connected. Alazon was missing. Some of the people who had attacked me had appeared to be loyal to Shin Makoku until the attack actually happened. Murata _thought_ that the attacks were intended to keep Seisakoku from getting their holy sword back, and Geneus seemed to suspect much the same, judging from the question he'd asked in the castle foyer . . . had it only been two days ago? Shin'ou _thought_ that we were dealing with a large conspiracy spanning several countries and decades or centuries back in time. 

How long had the sword been missing from Seisakoku, and how had it been lost or stolen? Beryes might know. It had to have been a while for it to end up in the state it had been in when I'd first seen it, so badly corroded it couldn't be drawn from its scabbard. Long enough for the human villagers in whose hands it had been to forget what it was? _We need to find that village and see what they know,_ I realized, but I had the sinking feeling that no one had ever asked where it was. Which meant that we needed to find Alford Makina, itinerant hero, and ask. Which probably meant scouring the entire continent, unless he decided to turn up on his own again. 

Did Gwendal, or the government of Shin Makoku in general, have the means to conduct a large search outside the country's borders? Sometimes it seemed as though Josak was their only spy, but that couldn't be right. Josak was probably just the one who got the dangerous, critical, the-country-is-going-to-implode-if-we-don't-do-this missions. There had to be others who quietly reported goings-on in their assigned areas without trying to interfere in anything. Maybe one of them would have reported something useful. _Someone_ had to know _something_. 

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose as the carriage clattered into the courtyard of Blood Pledge Castle and came to a stop. 

"I'm starting to understand why Gwendal gets all those headaches," I muttered, and Murata gave me a sympathetic look. 

If I'd been at home, Mom would probably have made me change before dinner to get rid of the slight horsy smell I was carrying around, but Conrad and Gwendal and even Wolfram had all, from time to time, come to the table here smelling worse—and anyway, it wasn't like I had anything to change into. It was an informal dinner, and I wasn't visibly dirty. That would have to do. 

The dining room set aside for the use of the Maoh and his intimates was on the second floor. On the way up, we met Greta and Anissina. Yuuri's adoptive daughter smiled at us and greeted me as "Uncle Shouri," which always made me feel a bit funny. Anissina, on the other hand, just gave me the kind of searching look that suggested she was considering me for inclusion in her next experiment. She'd had her eye on me ever since I'd demonstrated that I really did have maryoku, and lots of it. 

And although I wasn't exactly _trying_ to be, I was always aware of Josak at my back. Of the threat, and the need for a guard. I hated that. It was almost enough to make me want to jump into the nearest pool of water and beg Shin'ou to send me back to Earth . . . except that that would have meant abandoning Yuuri, and Geneus too. But still, how could I help anyone when I was effectively part of the problem? 

Günter was the only one in the dining room when we got there, sitting with his chair tilted back slightly and his ankles crossed, reading a book that he instantly put away when he saw us darkening the threshold. He nearly dropped his reading glasses as the front legs of his chair came down with a thump. 

"Your Highness, I wasn't expecting you to join us tonight! I'm very sorry! I'll send down to the kitchens to make sure that there's enough—" 

Murata made a "calm down" motion with his hands. "Please, Lord von Christ, stop fluttering. The kitchens always send up more than enough food to handle a few extra people." 

"Fluttering" really was a good description of what Günter often did, I reflected as we took our seats. Anissina and Greta ended up on Günter's left, Murata on Günter's right, and I chose a place that left me with empty seats on either side—I'm not quite sure why. Instinct, maybe. Josak had faded into some fold of architecture near the door, but I could somehow feel that he was still in the room with us. 

No sooner were we all seated than I heard voices coming from the hall. 

"My lord Maoh, I am not certain this is wise." 

"Relax. It'll be fine. I promise!" 

The door swung open, and Yuuri and Wolfram entered side-by-side. Conrad was half a step behind them, and a step or two behind him was Geneus . . . who froze in the doorway, staring at Murata. I could see his mouth twisting into a grimace and his hands balling into fists tight enough to stretch the fabric of his gloves almost to the splitting point over his knuckles as he fought not to do something violent to the boy everyone accepted as the true Great Sage. 

I didn't think I could ever have controlled that much hatred. 

Yuuri, oblivious as always, didn't even notice a member of his little entourage was missing until he had one hand on the back of the chair beside me. "Geneus-san?" 

A visible shudder ran through Geneus. "Your Majesty, I am afraid I was correct. This is not a good idea." Slowly, he began to turn around—he was clearly forcing himself. I don't think he wanted to put his back to Murata. Certainly he turned sharply back toward the table when one of the chairs scraped back, hand reaching for his belt and closing over an empty scabbard. 

Mentally, I cursed the fact that I wasn't close enough to grab Murata's wrist and hold him back as he stood up. "What are you doing, friend-of-my-brother?" The silly not-quite-nickname had never seemed more . . . inappropriate. 

"What I have to do, Shibuya's-big-brother." The reflection off his glasses hid Murata's eyes again as he stepped away from the table and began to move toward the door, where Geneus was watching as though Murata were a poisonous snake intent on biting him, body tense and defensive. 

Murata stopped about five feet from Geneus and licked his lips. I'd never seen him so nervous before. "Geneus-san, I . . . I'm so sorry. I was wrong about you, and I hurt you, and I persuaded others to hurt you, and I had no right." He bowed so deeply he almost knocked his forehead against his knees. "I'd undo the past if I could, but that's beyond my ability. All I can do is ask your forgiveness." 

There was a long silence, while Geneus stayed tense and Murata stayed bent over, showing the seemingly-older man the vulnerable back of his neck, and everyone else held their breaths. 

Slowly, one finger at a time, Geneus unclenched his hand from belt and scabbard and lowered it to his side. 

"I have no forgiveness to offer." 

Beside me, Yuuri drew in a breath. I reached over and yanked on his sleeve, caught his eyes for a moment. Shook my head. _I_ could tell that Murata didn't want our interference, but Yuuri tended to be a bit oblivious about these things. 

"Forgetfulness, however, I may be able to manage," Geneus continued. "Indeed, if I am to remain in Shin Makoku, I suppose I _must_ manage it." 

Murata raised his head a bit, crooked smile peeking out. "That's all I really want. I don't expect you to stop hating me. I just don't want the two of us fighting all the time. It would be hard on everyone else, you know? Especially if we ended up knocking part of the castle down. I think it's needed more repairs since Yuuri came to the throne than in the two hundred years previous to that. Although I wasn't actually here to see the last couple of hundred years." 

Geneus' eyes were still slightly narrower than usual, but the rest of his expression had smoothed over, and he even offered Murata a small nod. The Great Sage straightened up, rubbed his back, and headed back to the table to plop down in the chair he'd just left, between Günter and Wolfram. Geneus hesitated in the doorway a moment more before crossing the room with smooth, gliding strides and pulling out the empty chair beside me, putting me between him and Yuuri. 

My brother smiled. "Whew, am I glad that's over. Geneus-san—" 

"I apologize, your Majesty. I did not intend to disrupt your meal." 

"Oh, no, no, don't worry about it . . ." 

Groping carefully under the table, I found a gloved hand, squeezed it gently. _Are you okay?_

I don't think anyone else noticed the brief flicker of surprise that crossed Geneus' face . . . or maybe Murata did. He seemed to notice everything, especially when you didn't want him to. Hopefully Geneus wasn't aware of that as he offered me a tiny nod and even the ghost of a smile. 

More noises out in the hallway, and in swept Sangria, Eve, and a large cart laden with food. They'd just begun laying things out on the table when Gwendal appeared and closed the doors with a _thud_. 

"You shouldn't be leaving those open, Majesty. Not with unknown assassins in the area." The last empty seat at the table was between Geneus and Anissina, and Gwendal winced and rubbed his forehead before forcing himself forward to take it. "I need to eat quickly so that I can go back and relieve Beryes." 

"Has he eaten at all since the attack?" Conrad punctuated the question by spearing some sort of stuffed vegetable drizzled with sauce from a platter and transferring it to his plate. 

"Once or twice, I think. And he slept for a few hours last night, after we traded watches." Gwendal had already ransacked a half-dozen platters, piling his plate with beans and bread and deviled eggs and other things that could be stuffed quickly into his mouth without needing to be dissected first. 

"He's been using a lot of houjutsu, too, trying to heal Sara," Yuuri said. "I hope he's okay." 

The platter directly in front of me bore a dozen carefully arranged, very large . . . bugs. Or maybe they were smallish lobsters. I suspected they were the reason for the extra utensils flanking everyone's plates tonight. Whatever they were, I wasn't going to try one, and I saw Yuuri eyeing them as though he thought they were going to jump up and bite him. Murata, on the other hand, smiled cheerfully as he reached past Wolfram to snag one. I think he just did it to gross Yuuri out, because once it was on his plate he just left it there. 

Geneus took one too, flipping it over on his plate and slicing the underside open with a small, scalpel-like knife. It released a burst of fragrant steam that made my mouth water, but I was a little disconcerted to see that the meat inside looked bluish. 

"Beryes-san is a strong man," Conrad said as I started to fill my own plate with things that looked reasonably innocuous. "I think he's capable of surviving for a few days on a field soldier's ration of sleep and food." 

"And if he isn't, we can always have Giesela knock him out for a while," Murata added. 

Dinner continued like that, with a lot of small talk about people who weren't there and as little discussion as possible about what was going on around us. Günter even laughed at one of Conrad's jokes, which showed how on-edge we all were. 

It was Gwendal who pointed out the elephant in the room. Having cleared his plate, he wiped his mouth, folded his napkin, and pushed back his chair. 

"Uncle Gwendal? Aren't you staying for dessert?" I think Greta was the only one at the table who would have been brave enough to ask such a thing. 

The line of Gwendal's mouth softened for a moment as he said, "Not tonight, Greta. I need to give Beryes a chance to eat." Then he cleared his throat. "We're going to meet in King Saralegui's room tomorrow morning to discuss what to do." 

"I shall ensure that everyone attends," Günter said. 

Gwendal gave a final, sharp nod and left the room. 

Dessert was some kind of complicated cake with whipped cream and berries, but only Greta was able to do it justice. I don't even remember how it tasted. 

"Shouri?" 

I blinked. My nose was almost _in_ that whipped cream. I hadn't even realized I was nodding off. 

"I guess it's been a longer day than I thought," I told Yuuri. 

"With your permission, your Majesty, perhaps your brother and I will excuse ourselves." I think it was the first thing Geneus had said since apologizing for his confrontation with Murata. 

"You don't need to ask my permission, Geneus-san—we're not that formal here. Good night, Shouri." 

"Good night." 

Geneus bowed politely as we both rose to our feet. I got the feeling that he wasn't ready to be informal with Yuuri, or anyone else here, for that matter. The heads of the Ten Noble Families would probably have approved, especially Wolfram's uncle the von Bielefelt. It just made me want to sigh, though. I might not be Yuuri, who was worried when people weren't at their ease, but I did wish Geneus would relax a bit. 

Had I ever seen him really relaxed? I'd thought so, when he'd apologized to me for locking me inside the cage in that cart. And again when we had woken up today. But around others, he stiffened right up. 

Josak slipped out of whatever crevice he'd found to hide himself in and followed us on the twisting path that led around to the guest rooms at the other side of the castle. The hallways seemed to blur into each other, and I was glad to have an escort. Otherwise I might have ended up in the stables or Gwendal's office or . . . almost anywhere, really. I just wished I understood how I'd gotten that tired. Maybe it was trying to ride that damned horse that had done it. I still felt like my thighs were raw, and my muscles stretched out of shape. 

A gentle touch on my elbow pulled me back into the real world. 

"Lord Weller suggested that I take the room beside yours," Geneus said. "Good night, Shouri." 

He shot Josak an inscrutable glance before slipping through a door a bit further down the hall. 

Josak sighed. "I almost wish I could reassure him that we're going to keep you safe, but that would mean telling him that I know he cares, and that would probably piss him off. Good night, Shouri-sama. It'll probably be Günter out here when you wake up. Don't panic." 

"Tell that to Günter," I muttered, smothering a yawn. "I don't do panic." 

"No, you just freak out and try to flood the castle while yelling random things about protecting your brother," Josak drawled. "Get some sleep. I don't know what Gwendal has planned for us in the morning, but I don't think it's going to be much fun."


	6. Interlude: Rex Redux

The candleholder, and the bowl that stands beside it on the desk, are of pewter, ornate but worn. The lump of pink granite beside them, by contrast, is a smooth egg-shape that shows no evidence it was carved into its present form more than four thousand years ago. 

There is a globe of fire hovering just above his head, and it casts flickering shadows across the pewter snakes that coil around the edge of the bowl, the fine detail of their scales nearly smoothed away by age, and across the book he is trying to read. It's rather dry, even for a history, and he is tired, more tired than he should be, but he forces himself to work his way through another paragraph regardless. During the war, he sometimes went for days without sleep, when circumstances required it. And in more recent years, there have been oh-so-many times when he was in too much pain, or too frightened of his own dissolution, to close his eyes. 

"You look bored." 

He jerks in his chair and glances sharply around the room, looking for the source of the voice, an aura of power beginning to gather around him in response to his unspoken need. 

"Down here." 

His eyes fasten at last on the small figure standing with one hand resting on the pewter candlestick, and he blinks at the impossibility, the energies that surround him crackling away again as he realizes this presence is not a threat. "Sh-shin'ou-sama? What are you doing here—and in such a form?" 

Shin'ou shrugs. "I didn't expect you would return to the temple, and I have a hard time maintaining a form any larger than this outside it." 

"Your power fades in proportion to the distance from your bones, then," Geneus says quietly. 

"So you remember that as well." 

Geneus turns his head aside, so that the other cannot see his eyes filling with tears. "I remember everything." 

A wince. "I'm sorry. I . . ." A long pause. "You have to understand that I didn't _want_ to believe. Knowing that I'd left a man who held within him some portion of my best friend as, effectively, a prisoner in Big Cimaron, even though I had the power to help, if I'd just realized . . . that hurt almost beyond bearing. It was easier to let him convince me that you were just a doll. Dolls don't feel pain. If you were just a soulless . . . thing . . . then I wouldn't have done anything wrong." 

"You blonde idiot." The tears spill over then, but he smiles as well, because the whole situation is just so damnably _familiar_ . . . "How many times do I have to tell you that rescuing people in person is _not_ part of your job anymore?" 

"Probably a few thousand more, if you want it to stick." Shin'ou tilts his head, and winces. 

"Are you well?" Somehow he keeps his hands on the book, doesn't try to reach out and touch . . . 

"Just bruises. Your young friend Shouri defended you . . . vigorously." 

"As you say, he is young. In time, I believe he will come to see the merits of a more subtle approach. He may be impulsive, but he is not lacking in intelligence." 

"I know. He'll make Earth a good Maoh, when the time comes. He'd have made an even better one for Shin Makoku, if . . ." 

"If our plan hadn't required a stubborn fool who didn't know when to give up." Time hasn't entirely dissipated the bitterness of that memory, either. 

"Yes." A pause. "You like him. Shouri." 

"I owe him my life." 

"And?" 

"And yes. I like him. He has been a good friend to me thus far, and for very little reason. Very nearly the first thing I did when we met was kidnap him." 

Shin'ou chuckles. "Well, I suppose that's one way of getting him to yourself." 

Geneus' answering smile is wan. "I wish that had been why I did it. I hated much of what Alazon made me do, but I had no choice but to do it. I was not ready to die again. Ironic, really, when you consider how many memories of my own deaths I hold. But it never seems to get easier." 

"I don't think it's supposed to be easy." A pause. "You know, I've missed this. Talking with you. It isn't quite the same with Murata. Oh, he remembers everything too, but with that mischievous streak of his, he's rather what I imagine a son of ours would have been like, if we'd ever dared . . . It makes me wish that it wasn't too late. That we could be together that way again. Unfortunately, I'm not physical enough anymore. Even at the temple, it takes some effort for me to stay solid—it was only the unconscious action of Shouri's maryoku that allowed him to hit me. Without a body, I don't even have any genes to pass on." 

Inside Geneus, something twists, spearing him with an odd combination of pleasure and pain. Pleasure, because Shin'ou has just casually affirmed that he accepts his identity as the Great Sage. And pain, because a portion of their relationship can never be restored. 

"We should have taken our chances while we could," he says softly. 

"If we had known, I expect we would have." Shin'ou shrugs. "Unfortunately, we can't go back—we have to move on from where we are now." 

"You seem to have grown some wisdom while I was away." 

"Nothing to compare with yours, O Wise One." 

The two of them share a smile at the old, teasing nickname, and Shin'ou wanders across the desk to look into the bowl. 

"These . . . you were performing your tribe's quadri-elemental rite, weren't you?" 

"I am surprised you remember. We only discussed it briefly." 

"I'm hardly likely to forget." Shin'ou runs his hand over the nicked pewter. "The one time you showed me these was the first time I had ever seen you cry." 

Geneus can't reply. The lump in his throat is too large. He is never likely to forget where these things came from, or how long he held them in trust for a child who had never been born. 

"I suppose I can understand you feeling the need to rededicate yourself," Shin'ou says. 

Geneus forces a smile with the skill of an experienced diplomat. "It was more basic than that. An elemental bond does not survive across incarnations. To get my full power back, my only options were to dedicate myself to a single element in the style of your tribe, or do this. I think I rather confused the soldier they had following me around, however, when I spent nearly two hours digging through the back of a storeroom to retrieve two battered relics of no obvious worth . . . and a rock." 

Shin'ou laughs. "Actually, I think Dakaskos was born confused. He always seems to be one of the last people to figure out what's going on. But before we get too sidetracked, there's something else I want to talk to you about, old friend." 

"Go on." Geneus doesn't like the way Shin'ou has his hands planted on his hips and his elbows sticking out, though, because that too is familiar. Even if it does look ridiculous in miniature. 

"Just what did you think you were doing, trashing my city? I can understand the baby-snatching incident, kidnapping Shouri, and the attacks on Yuuri. Alazon wasn't giving you much choice there. But by the time you got back here, you knew she wouldn't be able to do anything more to help you, and if you just wanted a diversion, you could have found a less violent one, so why . . . ?" 

Geneus sighs. "If I had been thinking, I doubt I would have done it. I was half-mad with fear. In short, I was behaving like a terrified idiot." 

"I agree. The question is, are you willing to try to make up for it?" 

"What do you want me to do?" He's been present before when Shin'ou felt he needed to do this, to push someone into balancing the scales, but he's never been the subject before, and it feels odd. 

"Watch over my kingdom. Do whatever you can to help my chosen successor. Protect what we built." 

"I would have done that anyway." 

Shin'ou smiles. "Well, now you have an official order to do it. Be prepared to take on anything from paperwork to rogue dragons, because Yuuri has a talent for getting himself in trouble, and no matter how many protectors and assistants he has, he can always use one more." Suddenly, he rubs his forehead. "I don't think I can maintain this focus much longer. Come up to the temple when you can. Please. It's easier for me to talk there." 

"I will." The promise, once given, cannot be taken back, but he knows he will keep it. He could not stay away. 

Long after Shin'ou has disappeared from the surface of the desk, Geneus continues staring at the space where his friend stood, until some soft noise draws his attention away and he realizes that it is past the midpoint of the night. He sets the book in his lap aside, makes his way over to the bed, and extinguishes the hovering ball of fire. 

For the first time since Alazon birthed him into this era, there are no nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite Shin'ou's comment, there is no M-Preg in this. Really.


	7. Chapter 5

Breakfast the next morning was less communal than supper the night before, or maybe I just thought so because I woke up late, to the sound of Günter pounding on my door and wailing my name in that inimitable way he has. I didn't have time to do more than snag a couple of rolls and a fruit that looked like an apple but tasted more like a mango before I was being dragged back toward the guest rooms again. Eating on the run is never much fun, especially when you're trying to keep from dripping fruit juice on your freshly laundered shirt, which is also just about the only item of clothing you have with you that isn't borrowed from someone else. 

We passed my room again just as Geneus emerged from his. Like me, he was back in his own clothes again rather than hand-me-downs scavenged from around the castle, but I didn't think it was just because of that that he looked a hundred percent better than he had last night. Something subtle in his expression had relaxed. 

"Good morning, Shouri." 

"Good morning," I said. "Have you had breakfast yet?" 

"No, but—" 

I still had one untouched roll in my hand, so I offered it to him. I was a little surprised when he accepted, plucking it from where it was cradled in my palm and nibbling at it, while Günter goggled at him as though he had grown a second head. 

"I suspect it would be best not to hold matters up," Geneus said between bites. "Where is King Saralegui's room?" 

Günter pulled himself together. "At the end of the corridor. And we're already late. His Majesty will be so disappointed!" 

I snorted. Yuuri didn't get disappointed about things like that. Gwendal would probably be ticked off, though. 

They'd given Saralegui what was probably the biggest guest room in the castle, but it still seemed awfully small with twelve people packed into it. There definitely weren't enough chairs. Yuuri had gotten one, and Murata, and Wolfram was perched on a windowsill. And Saralegui was still in bed with bandages wrapped around his chest. Everyone else had to stand. 

I looked at faces. Yuuri's expression spoke of his normal wide-eyed optimism. Gwendal's eye was twitching. Hube, who had to have gotten here late last night, looked dead-dog tired. Everyone else looked neutral-to-serious, even Josak and Conrad, both of whom smiled pretty much all the time. _They think that this is almost as serious as the Originators and the Forbidden Boxes._

Gwendal cleared his throat. "We need to agree on a course of action," he said, and there were nods all around. 

"The problem is that we don't _know_ enough," Murata said. "Our best guess is that this is really aimed at Seisakoku, and everyone else just got dragged in because of the sword. Unfortunately, Seisakoku may be the one country on this planet that I've never visited in any incarnation . . . which means that you're the only one who might know anything useful, Beryes-san." 

Saralegui's stone-faced guard nodded. "Ask your questions." 

"How, and when, did the holy sword go missing from Seisakoku in the first place?" 

"It vanished nearly four hundred years ago, long before I was born. No one knows for certain who took it, but the blame is generally pinned on a noble who disappeared at about the same time: Catores Bevalin. Nor is anything known of the method he used. The sword was in its usual place one night, and gone the next morning. We weren't quite so isolated then as we later became, and were in the habit of sending out trade ships to Cimaron and a few of the other human nations. At least four vessels sailed with the tide that night. Two of them never reached their intended destinations. The sword could have been on any of them, or smuggled out on a fishing vessel. Or so my tutor always said," Beryes finished with a shrug. 

"It took four hundred years for you to even _start_ looking for the sword?" Trust Wolfram to ask a question like that in such a confrontational tone. 

"The island was scoured nearly down to the bedrock at the time it disappeared. That took almost a year, and by that time any trail that might have led to foreign lands was long cold. And for a time, the matter seemed less than urgent. It took years before anyone realized that the failing harvests were connected to the loss of the sword, and nearly a century before those failures began to endanger the food supply." Yuuri seemed about to say something, but Beryes held up a hand to stop him. "With rationing, the sea surrounding the island produces enough to feed the remaining population, although the lack of surplus means that we lose some older folk whenever the catches fall off, and malnutrition is regrettably not uncommon. The greatest shortage is of cloth, which requires either arable land, or beasts which the island can ill afford to feed. Public nudity had become common among the lower classes by the time I left, simply because they had no choice." 

Murata's eyes gleamed. "So it's like a giant nudist colony?" 

Before Beryes could answer, I gritted out, "And no one has any idea how the sword got to where Alford found it?" 

Murata looked rather disappointed. It was probably the single thing about him that annoyed me the most: the way he sometimes said things, or did things, just because he wanted to see people react. He was almost as bad as Shin'ou that way. 

"The villagers were not overly forthcoming on the subject," Geneus said. "However, we did manage to gain the impression that it was confiscated from one of their number, a man living on the edge of the settlement, in lieu of debts he owed. Or, more accurately, it was confiscated from his family after the man himself disappeared. Retracing the weapon's path, if that is possible at all, will mean talking to them. If the sword's interim owner is still alive, there is a possibility that the assassins are his doing. If not, they are linked to the original sword thieves." 

Saralegui's eyebrows rose. "How so?" 

"There are a limited number of potentially interested parties here, as I have no doubt you have deduced yourself, Saralegui-heika," came the reply. "And of those, no others have any interest in ensuring that the sword is not used." 

Saralegui smiled, tilting his head to one side in a way that I think was supposed to be endearing. It made me think of a shark who was trying to act cuddly and harmless. "Could I ask you to enumerate the other interested parties, as you see them?" 

"Surely my assessment could only be of minimal interest." Geneus' tone was polite, but his gaze was intent. 

"On the contrary, I think it would be fascinating. You have been more closely involved in these events than any other single person in this room. Your perspective must necessarily be unique, and everything I have seen of you suggests that you are acutely perceptive." 

Unexpectedly, Geneus smiled. "I have not forgotten your previous offer, King Saralegui, but I fear my answer is still no." 

Saralegui sighed. "Really? Such a pity. Having you at my side would make handling Lanzhil much easier." 

"For a time, perhaps, but we both know that you would never be able to bring yourself to trust me. There would always be a question in the back of your mind regarding where my loyalties truly lay. Eventually, I would have to depart Small Cimaron to avoid ending up in opposition with you." 

"Mmh." Not agreement, exactly, and judging from the gleam in the young king's eyes, he wasn't conceding defeat. "I'd still like to know who you think the interested parties are, with respect to the sword." 

Geneus inclined his head. "Very well. As I perceive it, said parties are likely seven. First, Alazon herself, and the people of Seisakoku, whom she represents. Secondly, there is likely a political faction in Seisakoku itself which would prefer not to see her return, although they would still wish to see their land restored. Thirdly, the remnants of the White Crow that chose not to involve themselves with Alazon and her cause, some of whom might want to take and hold the sword out of sheer spite. Fourthly and fifthly, those of us in this room: yourself and your supporters, and Yuuri and Shouri and those who serve them—our interests may be aligned for the present, but they are not the same, and therefore we cannot be considered to comprise only one group. Sixthly, the weapon's interim owner or his family, who may want it back. The original thieves would comprise a seventh faction, if some remnant of them still exists after four centuries, and if the interim owner is not associated with them." 

"And you believe the White Crow to be innocent of the assassination attempts?" 

"We are talking about a handful of elderly men and women who have dedicated their lives to houjutsu-related research," Geneus said. "All of them are human. While in theory they might be able to hire assassins or recontact some of the individuals who followed me into Alazon's service, I cannot see how they would be able to corrupt multiple members of Shin Makoku's palace guard. It would be more reasonable to suspect you of staging the attacks." 

Saralegui dipped his head, still smiling. "And your prescribed course of action?" 

"We have to go to the village," I said, before Geneus could. 

"It does kind of look like that's our only lead, doesn't it?" Yuuri said. "Geez, we only got back here a few days ago . . ." 

"You aren't going," I snapped. 

"But, Shouri—" 

"It's different this time," I said grimly. "There are _assassins_ after you, Yuuri. You need to stay where you can be protected." Above and behind my brother, I could see Gwendal von Voltaire nodding. "This is something that someone else can easily do for you—it doesn't need the Maoh." 

"But—" 

I cut him off again, ruthlessly. "If you managed to get yourself killed running around in the middle of nowhere, it would mean an entire _country_ in mourning, plus everyone you know on the other side. The Shin Makoku Alliance might dissolve—at the very least, some countries would pull out—and any militant elements here would try to use your death in Cimaronese territory as an excuse to start another war. You've built something that only you can preserve, and that's what you should be doing if you care about the people who depend on you here, not running off on another adventure." 

"Not that it's gonna be much of one," Josak said. "Northwest Cimaron . . . that means a lot of land travel, since the storm season starts early up there—the harbours are gonna be closed for the next several months. Back roads, third-rate inns, bad food, bedbugs, snow, and bandits. Take it from me, it'll be more boring than anything else." 

"And Big Cimaron itself is in a state of turmoil," Günter added. "Lanzhil is no longer secure on his throne, and there is a possibility of civil war . . . Please, Your Majesty, don't go! I couldn't bear it if you were killed!" 

Yuuri was turning from side to side, looking for someone, anyone, willing to support him, and his desperate gaze fastened on Conrad, who offered him a gentle smile. 

"Your Majesty, we will naturally support you in whatever you decide to do . . . but in this case, I believe that Shouri-dono is right: this is not something you can, or should, try to deal with in person." 

"But then who . . . ?" 

"I will go." 

Everyone—even me—turned to look at Geneus. 

"I am aware that many of you do not trust me. However, if I am not mistaken, you also have no one else to spare . . . and I do have the advantage of knowing exactly where the village is." 

Gwendal rubbed his forehead in a familiar gesture, but it was Yuuri who spoke. "If you go alone . . . that's kind of dangerous, isn't it?" 

"Of course it is, Shibuya." Murata's expression was serious. "That's why he's offering. He feels he needs to atone for what he's done." 

Geneus shot a sharp glare at the bespectacled youth. 

I licked my lips. "He won't be going alone . . . because I'm going with him." 

I almost cringed when everyone started staring at me rather than Geneus. Maybe it wasn't the brightest thing I could have said—or decided to do—but I was damned if I was going to back down. 

"Shouri . . . this is unwise." The soft voice echoed my thoughts in slightly different words. 

"I didn't save your life just so that you could run off and die somewhere else," I said firmly. 

"And I am supposed to be happy that you are putting yourself at risk? Or have you forgotten that King Saralegui and my lord the Maoh weren't the only ones to be targeted by the enemy?" 

"That's exactly why I have to go." _It's the only way I can get some of these would-be assassins away from Yuuri: by having them chase after me instead. It's the only constructive thing I can do. Please understand . . ._

Geneus gave me a long, level look. Then, slowly, he said, "I have no right to command you. Nor does anyone else here—you are not of Shin Makoku, and therefore you are not a subject of the Maoh. If you must go, I had rather it be with me, and under what protection I can offer, than alone." A soft, exasperated sigh. "It is certainly in your nature to stand your ground when it is most inconvenient. Not unlike . . ." He didn't finish the statement, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Murata smile that crooked smile of his, and that alone would have made it clear who Geneus was referring to. _Shin'ou. Again._

"Okay, so . . . the two of us. Lord von Voltaire, can we count on you to supply us with what we're going to need for the trip?" I knew I was sticking my neck out, but, well, I'd landed in Shin Makoku with four hundred yen in my back pocket and no local money at all, and I doubted Geneus was any better off. Alazon had never struck me as someone who would be generous with her bank account. 

Instead of answering, Gwendal turned to look at Conrad, and they carried out a brief negotiation in raised eyebrows and subtle facial expressions. 

" . . . Three of you," von Voltaire said after that was over. "Josak will be accompanying you. You need more than one guard, no matter how much you may trust him—" Gwendal gave Geneus a baleful glare. "—and Josak knows how to tap the various accounts and supply caches we have in Cimaron. I would send Gegenhuber as well, but he is too distinctive—and too Mazoku—in appearance." Hube looked relieved—he did have a wife and a baby at home, after all. "And . . . Geneus-dono? If you fail to keep Shouri-dono safe, don't bother coming back here." 

Geneus inclined his head. "If I fail to keep him safe, there likely will not be enough left of me to return." 

"I can see this is gonna be an interesting trip," Josak muttered. "Logistics . . . disguises . . . ah, man . . ." 

"With Your Majesty's permission, then," Geneus said, nodding to Yuuri. 

"I don't like it," my brother said quietly. "It isn't that I don't trust you, Geneus-san—I swore I would never mistrust anyone ever again, and I meant it. It's just . . . something feels a little off about all this. But I also don't see what else we can do, so . . . okay. Besides, I'd feel weird ordering Shouri not to do something, even if I could. I mean, he _is_ my big brother." 

Günter babbled something about brotherly love that I tuned out. Instead I glanced at Geneus, but he had his poker face on. Everyone else in the room mostly looked grumpy, except for Saralegui, who had a tiny now-how-can-I-exploit-this smile on his face, and Josak and Conrad, the grinning idiots. 

"You know, Yuuri," said Saralegui, "we may be able to clear more of your troops as trustworthy if we use me as bait." 

"Absolutely not," came Yuuri's instant reply. "If you get hurt again . . ." 

"You are such a—" 

"A wimp," Wolfram muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear him. 

"A gentle person," Saralegui corrected, his unnerving smile never leaving his face. "Beryes is more than capable of protecting me, I assure you." 

"We don't doubt Beryes-san's competence, Saralegui-sama," Murata said. "However, he's only one man, and he can't be everywhere at once. No, there must be a better way." Suddenly, he perked up. "Maybe I'll put Anissina-san on it." 

Yuuri blinked. "I just hope we don't end up with a castle full of security-cleared pink bunny rabbits . . ." 

Gwendal perked up too, presumably at the thought of all those cute pink bunnies. Myself, I just hoped I wouldn't be here long enough to see whatever Anissina came up with. 

The meeting broke up pretty fast after that, after some reassignment of bodyguards. Apparently if I was happy with Geneus guarding me, Gwendal was going to put Günter on Saralegui instead. 

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I was on my way out of the room and almost jumped out of my skin. Fortunately, it was only Josak. 

"I know all about equipping an expedition for one, but handling extras is gonna be a bit more work, so I figure the three of us should talk," he said. "And not out in the hallway, either." 

We ended up in Geneus' room, with him sitting beside a desk that had somehow managed to become cluttered with books and oddments in less than a day, me sitting on the edge of the bed, and Josak leaning against the wall beside the window. 

"I hate to ask this, Shouri-sama, but are you really sure you want to do this? I don't know what you might have done in your world, but here you've barely traveled outside Shin Makoku. And given what the captain's told me about your world, I doubt you can ride or use a sword . . . or do anything much to look after yourself that doesn't involve majutsu, really. If we get in trouble, you'll be the one most at risk." 

"I don't expect it to be fun," I said. "Yuuri learned how to deal with horses and swords. I can too, if that's what it takes." I had to admit that I kind of regretted not getting into kendo now, though. 

"We will need some sort of explanation for our presence in Cimaron," Geneus said. 

"And disguises to go with it," Josak said, grinning. 

I gave him a Look. "You just enjoy playing dress-up." 

"Actually, it was you two I was thinking of. Can't have two double-blacks running around in human territory—we might as well carry signs with us saying, 'Mazoku here!' Dyeing that mane of Geneus-sama's is gonna be difficult, though." 

"You can't ask him to cut it!" I flushed as I realized what I had just blurted out . . . but the memory of the tactile sensation of my fingers buried in that thick braid was very strong, just then. Really, it wasn't so bad to be thinking about that, was it? That long hair was . . . kind of feminine . . . just about the only thing about him that was . . . _Girls, I have to think girls . . ._

Geneus smiled an enigmatic smile. "It would grow back. However, as I may wish to make contact with the surviving remnants of the White Crow, any disguise I take on must be easily removed. And concealing these—" He touched the marking under his left eye. "—by purely physical means would require a full course of theatrical makeup. Best that I resort to illusion, and the use of a hood to conceal my face as much as possible, as I did in Alazon's service." 

"So that leaves Shouri-sama." 

"And you," I said. "I mean, you were in that rigged Games thing that the previous king put on, right? Someone might recognize you from there." 

Josak grinned. "Not if I'm wearing a skirt—and besides, I'd bet that having the Maoh suddenly trash the arena drove any memories of what Caloria's second contestant looked like right out of most people's minds. They'll remember the young master, and the captain, and maybe Adalbert. Not me. Trust me on that. As for you . . . well, you'd look great with blue hair, but in Big Cimaron, that would stand out almost as much as black, so we'll probably have to make you a blonde. Brown won't work—it doesn't really look convincing on the young master, either. And . . . hmm. Blue contacts? Maybe green?" 

"I hate contacts," I muttered, adjusting my glasses. 

"They may not be necessary," Geneus said. "If you will permit me to perform an experiment?" 

"Is it likely to blow me up, exhaust my maryoku, or make me do something embarrassing in front of witnesses?" 

That got me a smile. "Hopefully I am a bit more adept than Lady von Karbelnikoff. No, if I fail at this, most likely nothing at all will happen." 

"All right, then." 

I still felt a little nervous as he crossed the room to sit beside me on the bed, though. 

"Close your eyes and relax a bit. You are the last person I would ever harm." 

"Second-last," I muttered, but I did close my eyes obediently. 

"No, the absolute last. As I told you, Shin'ou sometimes needs a little sense knocked into him." 

A hand came to rest on the top of my head. It was a bit unexpected, but I couldn't imagine such a gentle touch hurting me, so I didn't open my eyes. Slowly, Geneus began to massage my scalp, doing something with maryoku that left a bit of a tingle around the roots of my hair. It was . . . kind of pleasant, really. I was almost disappointed when he started to move his hand down, letting it hover just a fraction of an inch from my skin. Some other bits of my body tingled too as he passed over them, and Little Shouri was just at the point of sitting up and taking interest when Geneus spoke again. 

"You can open your eyes now." 

I did, and at first nothing seemed different. "Did it work?" 

"Oh, boy, did it ever," Josak said. "We're gonna have to get you a mirror." 

"What?" I turned my head sharply for a better look at him, and something tickled my ear. Frowning, I reached back, found _way_ too much hair, and brought a strand forward for a better look. 

It was blonde. Straw-blonde, not golden like Wolfram's. And it was much longer than it should have been, almost as long as Gwendal's. Mid-back length. 

"Your eyes are sort of a grey-green," Josak said with a grin. "Kind of suits you, really. He even got your eyebrows . . . and lower down too, I would bet. You look like a human from somewhere out near the Pirate Isles, or you would if you were a little more tanned." 

I turned to Geneus. "This isn't permanent, is it?" 

"It requires a thread of my maryoku to maintain. You could block it if you chose, and the spell will disintegrate of itself if I am unable to continue feeding it, or if we are separated by some distance. With the spell broken, you will revert to your natural colouring. Here." He produced a scrap of ribbon from a pocket somewhere in his long tunic. "You will likely be more comfortable with your hair tied back." 

He scooped my hair off the nape of my neck and tied it, then closed his eyes and passed his hand slowly over his own face. When his eyes opened again, they were purple. It looked wrong, even though I knew they'd been exactly that colour until I'd changed him. Changed him back. Whatever. 

"We still need a cover story," Josak said. "Does 'bodyguards escorting a merchant's wife home' work for you? At least until we're well away from the coast. I can switch back to trousers somewhere out on the fringes. You'll both need swords, though, and we'll have to teach Shouri-sama to hold one properly." 

"I can do little more than that myself," Geneus admitted without a trace of embarrassment. "In none of my lifetimes have I ever made more than a mediocre swordsman. If we are to take on the appearance you suggest, I will take a bow as a show-weapon." 

"Huh. I wouldn't have taken you for an archer, either." 

"Not in this lifetime, but I believe a bit of practice will restore my skills. I may be able to do something for Shouri's swordsmanship as well, given the appropriate materials, a few hours' work, and a little assistance from a swordsman more skilled than myself." 

"Huh," Josak said again. "So . . . when do we leave, Shouri-sama?" 

_Am I supposed to be in charge?_ The thought actually steadied me—I mean, what else had I been training for, not just with Bob, but for most of my life? "As soon as we can get everything we need together," I said firmly. "I don't like wasting time." _And the sooner we're away from Blood Pledge Castle, the sooner the assassins are going to have to split up, if they want to get both me and Yuuri._ "I guess I'm going to need something more appropriate to wear," I added, forcing my mind away from the whole people-trying-to-kill-me-with-knives-and-crossbows thing. "If I wander around dressed in my own clothes, I'm going to stick out even with blonde hair." 

"The captain should have something you can borrow." 

"I'm starting to think Conrad and I should share a closet," I muttered. Then I blinked. "Come to think of it, he has a Cimaronese officer's uniform, doesn't he? That might end up being good for something, if he'll let us take it along." 

"Don't see why he wouldn't—it isn't like he wants to go back there any time soon." 

"Doing so would mean that he was willing to become their king," Geneus said quietly. "And that has never been his ambition. He is content with his place at his master's side." 

Josak blinked. "That's . . . pretty astute, given that the two of you have never really talked to each other." 

"I have been in his presence, and the Maoh's, often enough now to observe their behaviour. Lord Weller makes no effort to conceal his where his loyalties lie." 

"Yuuri trusts him absolutely," I said. "I didn't, at first." 

Geneus' eyebrows rose. "Because you thought he was disloyal, or because you thought he was unworthy of being your brother's guardian?" 

_Trust him to understand._ Although I wasn't about to admit that in front of Josak. "Anyway, we're wasting time here. We need to scrape together what we're going to take along, and . . . the nearest port isn't far from here, right?" 

"Bluehaven," Josak said. "We might even get there by tonight, if we push it. Won't be a fun ride, though." 

"This isn't supposed to be fun," I said. "Let's get moving." 

I'd never seen the inside of the castle armoury before, and it was kind of educational. Hundreds of swords, neatly racked, and bows and crossbows and pikes and knives and armour and things whose name and use I wasn't certain of. Everything smelled of oil and metal . . . and dust, since Shin Makoku hadn't been to war in nearly twenty years. 

Josak found me a plain sword, not too heavy, with a scabbard and one of those belt-with-shoulder-strap things, and showed me how to put it on. It felt awkward, and I found myself leaning slightly to the right to compensate for the weight as we headed for Conrad's rooms. 

Conrad wasn't actually there, so Josak ransacked his closet and dresser, and finished by leaving behind a note that I couldn't read but hopefully consisted of an explanation and not a challenge to a duel or something. In addition to the uniform, I got three off-white shirts, two pairs of blue pants, and a thigh-length grey jacket with hard leather insets that Josak insisted would protect the most vital parts of my body without getting in the way too much. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of wearing Conrad's used undershorts, but at least the pairs that Josak selected were more boxer-brief than bikini thong. 

Then Josak, saying that he doubted I could get into much trouble in the next five minutes in broad daylight in the middle of Blood Pledge Castle, went off to talk to Gwendal, and I headed back to my room to change. 

The quickest way back to the guestrooms was through the garden courtyard with the fountain, and I was surprised to see Greta there, standing on the edge of the basin and leaning over the water. As I watched, she leaned a bit too far and overbalanced, and I lunged forward, muttering a curse as I looked for a way through the hedges. 

Suddenly, though, there was a streak of movement, and someone else was there, gripping her by the shoulders and steadying her, then lifting her down so that she was standing firmly on the ground. 

"Best be careful, Princess," Geneus said with surprising gentleness. "The weather is a bit cold for a swim." 

"B-but my book . . ." 

Geneus made a small gesture, and a slender dragon rose out of the water with the book in its jaws. It deposited the object in Greta's hands before diving back into the fountain. 

"It's all wet," she said mournfully, examining it. "And it's one of Anissina-san's . . ." 

"May I see it for a moment?" Geneus held out his hand. After a moment, Greta placed the book in it. Geneus . . . I wasn't sure what he was doing. Riffling the pages with his thumb, obviously, but there seemed to be a faint haze rising from the paper. "There," he said after a moment, handing it back to her. "Fortunately, it wasn't in the water long enough for the ink to run." 

Greta paged through it slowly. Then she smiled. "The edges of the paper aren't even wavy! You know, at dinner last night, I thought you were kind of scary, but you're actually really nice. Kind of like Uncle Gwendal." 

"I am sorry if I frightened you, Princess." 

"You can call me Greta." 

"Then you must call me Geneus." He smiled back at her—a warm, sweet, and, I suspected, calculated smile. 

"Thank you for rescuing my book, Geneus." 

"Princess, it's time for your history lesson!" 

Greta made a face when she heard that voice, but what she said was, "I'd better go now, or Günter will start crying. I hate it when he does that. Maybe I'll see you later." 

She ran off, and Geneus watched her as she went, still smiling. 

"He always was good with children," said a voice somewhere at about knee level. 

I looked down. "What are you doing here?" I asked Shin'ou, who was standing on one of the extremely low brick walls that defined the flowerbeds. 

"I wanted to talk to you, and I didn't figure you would want to come up to the temple again either." He rubbed his jaw, and I think his expression was somewhere around "rueful"—it was hard to tell when he was so small he could have sat down in the palm of my hand. 

"What do you mean, 'either'?" 

"I suppose I owe Murata a drink, not that he's ever likely to collect. He thought you would pick up on that. I told him I didn't think you were that subtle. Clearly I haven't been observing you carefully enough—my ability to reach into the other world is limited." 

I ignored all that, working on piecing things together inside my head. "You dropped in on Geneus last night, didn't you?" 

"Three drinks, now." 

"I hope you at least apologized to him." 

Shin'ou sighed. "Of course I apologized to him. Not that it helped very much. I don't seem to be able to convince him that he didn't fail me. It's . . . difficult, you know. Intellectually, I know that Murata is the true reincarnation of my old friend, but Geneus . . . He doesn't just remember, but the way he speaks, his expressions, the little gestures . . . Talking to him was like stepping four thousand years back in time, and it hurts to see him so wounded, no matter how he tries to hide it. My Sage loved life, despite everything. His eyes shouldn't be so cold and empty. And knowing that it's my fault just makes it worse." 

I remembered the light in Geneus' eyes when he had smiled at me in the baths. If that was how Shin'ou remembered his old friend, then Geneus' normal demeanor might indeed have been a bit of an unpleasant surprise. 

"I don't think it's _only_ your fault," I said. Not because I cared myself whether or not Shin'ou was happy, but because I knew Geneus loved him, and _he_ would want to see his old friend and lover content. "Alazon deserves some of the blame. And there's something else I've noticed." 

"Go on." 

I chose my words carefully. "Geneus was created from the memories of one of Murata's incarnations from roughly two thousand years ago, but he barely ever mentions that life, even though he talks pretty casually about his experiences as the Great Sage." Come to think of it, Geneus might have said more about his life as the Great Sage than Murata had ever said about all his previous incarnations put together . . . which was something to consider at another time. "Still, his lifetime in Cimaron has to have contributed something to the person he now is. If he'd been happy there, if he'd had friends, there wouldn't be any reason for him to be so fixated on you. He was full of pain even before the two of you met at the temple." 

"I'm not sure that knowing I just piled on the last straw makes things any better. I . . . In a way, I'm just as responsible for Geneus' existence as my old friend ever was. I should have been there to help him, but because of that damned houjutsu body Alazon stuffed him into, I couldn't even hear him crying out . . . And now I can't put it right. By attacking him, I've broken the trust that would have existed between us, and although he doesn't realize it, it'll be a long time before he isn't at least a little wary of me. You, on the other hand, have never harmed him in any way." 

"What are you asking me to do?" 

The tiny figure gave me a sober look. "Draw that pain out of him. Get him looking forward at the future again, rather than back at the past. Make him whole somehow. I don't know. I just don't want him to stay like this." 

"Neither do I," I admitted. Not now that I was starting to understand what Geneus could be. What he should have been. 

"Um, excuse me, but who— _Shouri?!_ What happened to your hair?" 

I closed my eyes for a moment. Opened them, and saw that Shin'ou had disappeared, which meant I wouldn't have the chance to ask my other questions. 

I love Yuuri, but he has always had such _perfect_ timing. 

"I keep on telling you to call me _onii-chan_ , and I couldn't just go waltzing into Big Cimaron with black hair and black eyes," I said mildly. "It would be as good as hiring a marching band to follow us around. Or is it just that you don't like how I look as a blonde?" 

Yuuri waved his hands in front of him. "Oh, no, no! It was just a bit of a shock, that's all. I . . . didn't think you'd be leaving so soon." 

I shrugged. "I'm not doing anyone any good by sitting around here. Including you." _Or myself._ "And if you don't protect my brother properly, you'll never be able to drink a glass of water again," I added, meeting the eyes of his brown-haired perpetual shadow over the top of Yuuri's head. 

Conrad just smiled, the same way he always did. "I would expect no less." 

I reached out, nearly dropping my pile of clothes, and ruffled Yuuri's hair, ignoring the indignant sound he made. "You look after yourself, and don't do anything too stupid. Remember that whoever these people are, they want both of us dead, and your friend Sara, too. Don't go anywhere alone, and _especially_ don't go sneaking out of the castle in disguise." Although admittedly, I was the one running around without my bodyguards right now. 

My brother rolled his eyes. "Okay, Shouri, I get it." 

" _Onii-chan!_ " I corrected him sharply. Just because I could. 

"You be careful too. I . . . don't know what I would tell Mom if something happened to you." 

I didn't have anything to say to that, since I never liked thinking about that part either. If anything ever happened to Yuuri in this world, I was probably going to have to rely on Murata to break the news. 

Half an hour later, I found the first hurdle I was going to have to surmount on our trip waiting for me in the courtyard. She had three brown feet and one white one, and a brown muzzle salted with grey, and was dozing in the sun when I arrived and Dakaskos handed me her reins. 

"She's the gentlest horse in the stables," the bald little man told me. "Princess Greta rides her. Please take good care of her, Shouri-sama." 

"I'll try," I said, looking at my new transport dubiously and remembering how raw my legs had felt after the much shorter ride up to the temple. 

It turned out not to be as bad as I thought it would—sitting in the saddle rather than clinging on behind made a difference. Still, I would rather have ridden with Josak inside the coach, and by the time we got to Bluehaven, I was just praying for the ride to end. 

Bluehaven turned out to be a nice little town, smaller than the capital, with more docks than seemed to be strictly necessary for its size. It was probably the nearest place to the capital that merchant ships could put in, I decided. 

Dakaskos, driving the coach, led us down to the docks and to one ship in particular that had a lot of people tramping on and off it, carrying crates and sacks and barrels, even though it was getting damned close to sunset. I stayed on my horse when we stopped, but Geneus got down from his, approached a sailor, and was soon speaking to a somewhat better-dressed man that was probably the captain. We'd fleshed out our roles a bit during the ride, deciding that I was going to be a junior guard on my first job while Geneus played the part of my mentor and Josak's interface with the world. It was close enough to the truth . . . and it meant that Josak didn't have to talk too much in his (to my ear) unconvincing falsetto, although it unfortunately _did_ require Geneus to spend time in close proximity to strangers. The shadowing hood of the cloak he'd adopted now that we'd left the castle didn't hide his face nearly well enough for my comfort, although he didn't seem to be bothered. 

Once aboard, we were shown to a sort-of-suite that had an outer room with two narrow bunks for us guards and an inner one with a larger and softer bed for our "lady". I poked dubiously at the straw-stuffed mattress of the lower bunk before sitting down. Even if I wasn't chafed raw this time, my legs still hurt. 

Geneus sat down beside me and cupped his hands over my lap. I relaxed by degrees as healing energies teased the sore muscles into looseness. 

"How long is it going to take for us to get to Big Cimaron?" I asked. 

"About four days, if the wind holds. The history of these nations might be quite different if Cimaron and Shin Makoku were further apart." 

I had a sudden, horrible thought. "Geneus . . . you don't snore, do you?" 

"Not to my knowledge." He smiled, but it was one of those diplomatic expressions. Empty of genuine feeling. 

I licked my lips. "Are you . . . all right?" 

"I am worried about what we are going to find once we arrive," Geneus admitted, false smile vanishing. "Some of the killings took place in Spensport. That may prove to be an opportunity if any evidence was left behind, but if you are recognized, it will offer danger as well—we may be targeted from the moment the ship puts in. I am never entirely comfortable with nebulous risk, but I know too little at the moment to calculate the safest course of action." 

I nodded grimly. Four days to the unknown, then. And when we got there, I was going to have to be ready.


	8. Chapter 6

_The fourth step was the first one to bring forth real agony as I smashed against it. I knew my leg was broken, even though it was the first time I had experienced that particular sensation in this lifetime._

_I didn't cry out, but I couldn't help the way I instinctively extended my arm toward the hard-faced woman at the top of the stairs, mutely begging for help. Begging to make it stop._

_By the time I reached the bottom, my leg was broken in three places, and I was blinking back tears almost continuously. I'd hit my head, too, and my vision was slightly blurred . . . but not so blurry that I couldn't see her taking another pull from her bottle as she gazed down at me._

_"You can't even get up, can you? Useless brat." She turned her back on me with a disgusted expression and walked away along the upstairs hall._

_"Mama . . ." I whispered, then shook my head. Even in the body of a six-year-old human child, I was still the Great Sage of Shin Makoku. I could handle this without her help._

_It took me an hour of nightmarish crawling with the broken leg dragging behind me to find one of the servants, and ten minutes to calm her enough that she was able to send down to the village to fetch the local healer._

_When I was finally able to walk again without the splints and cast and crutches, I found that I had a distinct limp, one that would remain with me until I shed that body at last._

I woke disoriented, staring into darkness with my chest heaving like a bellows. After a moment, I managed to sort things out: I was Shouri Shibuya, and those creaking noises were coming from the ship bobbing at anchor at Bluehaven, and the other person whose breathing I could hear was Geneus, asleep in the bunk above me. 

I was Shouri Shibuya, and I was pretty sure that that hadn't been my dream, even though it had been damned vivid. My maryoku was definitely more awake than the rest of me, pulsing warmly under my skin, and I'd seen harnessed maryoku do some pretty freaky stuff, so why not sharing someone else's—Geneus'—dream? _Or more accurately, nightmare. Did that really happen to him?_ It was difficult for me to believe someone's _mother_ would just watch as her child got that badly hurt . . . but intellectually, I knew that things like that did happen sometimes, that some people were really that screwed up. 

If that was what his life in Cimaron had been like, no wonder he didn't talk about it. He probably didn't even like to think about it. It was worse than what Alazon had done, because the queen of Seisakoku hadn't had any particular obligation toward the mind in the memory crystal she had found. 

I sighed and flopped back down onto the thin, straw-stuffed mattress of my bunk. The problems would all still be there in the morning, I knew. Right now I should be trying to get a little more sleep . . . and I did, although the blonde woman, with her hard face and her bottle, haunted me through dreams I was pretty sure were my own this time, since Geneus wouldn't have known a damned thing about Bob, dating sims, or the NHK mascot. 

The room was still dark when I woke up the second time, but the tone of the creaking ship and the way it was moving had changed, and there was light peeking through the cracks under both of the doors. I yawned, rubbed my chin, and decided that since I could only just detect a hint of roughness under my fingers, I didn't need to shave yet. I slid my legs over the side of the bed and had started feeling for my boots when the suite's inner door opened. 

"Oh, so you're awake," Josak said. He was already dressed for the day, in something involving several layers of skirts and _much_ too much pink lace. "Where's Geneus-san?" 

I looked at the empty upper bunk, and shrugged. "Up already, I guess. I think he might have been having nightmares—I, um, heard him thrashing around." 

"Huh. Guess that means you have to go get my breakfast, then." 

I gave him a look, and Josak gave me a palms-up gesture that wasn't quite a shrug. "Sorry, but if I go up there myself when I have two servants with me, it'll completely blow my cover, and since Geneus is more convincing as a guard, you're probably the one who's going to get stuck with most of the fetching and carrying." 

"I don't mind," I said. _Although I do wish someone had thought to warn me._

The cook, a short, thickset man who looked like an ape and had biceps as thick as Josak's thighs, grumbled about merchants' wives "putting on airs" as he assembled a tray of scrambled eggs and toast. My breakfast was a piece of the same toast, burned, and I nibbled it morosely after carrying the tray down for Josak. At least it was a pleasant day, sunny and just warm enough to be comfortable despite the sea spray. 

I'd been wandering around on deck for a while, trying to stay out of the sailors' way (most of them looked about as charming and personable as the cook, which might explain why there had been a berth still open on this ship the evening before it sailed) when I spotted Geneus. He was perched on a coil of rope in the lee of one of the several small structures that jutted up from the surface of the deck, and as I got close enough for a better look I realized that he was holding a piece of dark-coloured crystalline rock about the size of the top joint of my thumb, webbed 'round with delicate threads of light. 

"What are you working on?" I asked as I sat down on the deck beside him. It seemed like a better way to open a conversation than, _Did your mother really push you down a flight of stairs when you were six years old?_ anyway. 

"Something to help improve your swordsmanship, since there isn't time to teach you the normal way." 

"I don't understand," I admitted. 

"Think of it this way: Skill in any physical activity is largely a matter of accumulating reflexes, so if you could borrow those of a skilled practitioner, your abilities would immediately improve. I was able to enlist Lord Weller's help yesterday—he being both the most skilled swordsman available and physically similar to you in terms of height, weight, and length of limb—and copy some of his reflexes into this crystal. It will, however, take me some hours of additional work to extend the spell so that everything is released in a controlled manner. The crystal is of no value if it causes you to lose consciousness when you attempt to use it." 

"I get the feeling this is going to do a bit more than just teach me how to hold the sword properly." Conrad was arguably the best swordsman in Shin Makoku—maybe in this entire world. Even if Geneus only succeeded in transferring one-tenth of his skill . . . 

"A bit, yes. How much more, I cannot be entirely certain. It will not make you invincible, but chances are that you will appear to be both confident and skilled—provided you don't have to fight anyone very talented, or for very long." 

"Huh." I tilted my head back, looking up at the sky . . . and at Geneus' intent face, visible at this angle despite the hood, as he twisted light-threads here and there, each movement making a tiny crackling noise that I could only just hear above the sounds of the ship. "Wait a minute—I thought normal Mazoku couldn't use majutsu outside Shin Makoku, so how are you . . . ?" 

"It is not impossible, merely more difficult. When we founded Shin Makoku, Shin'ou made a pact with the elemental spirits that resided there, and ever since then, they have been the obedient servants of our people. Outside Shin Makoku, the spirits are . . . not so tame, but they can still be bent to one's will, if one knows the trick of it—or has sufficient raw power to compel them." 

_And since you learned how to use majutsu before there_ was _a Shin Makoku, you could probably make wild elemental spirits dance Swan Lake, never mind a little thing like enchanting a rock._ Because I'd initially broken through into my powers on Earth rather than in Shin Makoku, presumably I either had the necessary knack at the instinctive level, or I fell into the "sufficient raw power" category. _I bet the wild spirits take one look at Wolfram, notice his temper, and run away as fast as they can._

"You have something else on your mind," Geneus said quietly. 

"Several something elses." It wasn't entirely a lie. "Geneus . . . is it possible for a Mazoku to share someone else's dreams?" 

"Certainly, if the Mazoku in question has a wind talent and the dreamer is strongly emotional. Most wind talents have a certain degree of empathy, and the suggestibility of the unconscious mind can extend that ability to allow images to leap the gap between two sleepers." 

"But it isn't something that water users can do, is it?" 

A quick flicker of an eyebrow, and Geneus' eyes darted to my face for a moment before focusing again on his work with the crystal. "Normally no, but you are a true Maoh, not simply an ordinary Mazoku with a water contract. In time, you will be able to manipulate all four elements. In this case, though, I would advise you not to take whatever you dreamt too seriously, as it was likely derived as much from your own subconscious as it was from whatever you received. Indeed, it can be dangerous to read too much into such a vision." 

"Dangerous?" 

"Well, embarrassing, at any rate. I doubt I will ever forget that incident with Erhardt, Morgif, and the duck . . ." 

The story that followed, recounted in absolutely deadpan tones, was both hilarious and so raunchy that I wouldn't have repeated it in front of Yuuri—and it explained a hell of a lot about Morgif, too. I had to hold one hand over my mouth to muffle my laughter, and my sides were aching by the time I managed to get myself back under control. 

"The dream I picked up on wasn't anything like that, thankfully," I said when I could talk again. 

"In that case, I hope it wasn't too disturbing. Erhardt always said that only nightmares transmitted themselves to him more clearly than erotic dreams." 

I licked my lips. "Geneus, was your mother blonde?" 

His hands went still. "Why assume that it was my dream?" 

"Because I remember something about being the Great Sage even though I was in a human's body passing through my head. Just after landing at the bottom of the stairs, I think." 

"Ah. _That_ dream. I thought I had repressed it, but apparently I have merely managed to keep myself from remembering it after I wake up." 

"So something like that . . . really happened to you." 

Geneus sighed. "My most recent childhood was not a pleasant one. Yes, the woman who bore the human body I wore two thousand years ago as Geneus Stornway was blonde. And she was affectionate enough when I was small. However, when I was five years old, problems began to develop between her and my father, and my memories began to return . . . I was banished with her to the family's country estate. After that, she was seldom sober, and she was a violent drunk." 

"If she was pushing you down flights of stone stairs all the time, I'm surprised you survived." 

"No, that only happened once. After that, the servants kept a better eye on her, although more out of fear of my father's wrath than any concern for me." 

My imagination conjured up a sad-faced little boy with dark blonde hair who looked more like Murata than anyone else. "Did they really hate you that much?" 

Geneus shrugged. "An adult mind in a child's body is never an easy combination. Still less a Mazoku mind in a human body, in a country at war with Shin Makoku. I never told any of them what I was, of course, but over the course of years, I did involuntarily let various things slip that I perhaps should not have. However, without the memories, I think I very likely would have gone mad during the three years I spent locked away with her. The past was the only place I could visit that was anything other than bleak." 

A sad-faced little blonde boy who had soaked himself in the memories of a man long dead until he _became_ that person, taking on his loves and fears, his guilts and hopes, and destroying what he might otherwise have been . . . _There's the reason, Shin'ou. Given the choice between being the Great Sage and being a terrified child with no one to turn to for help, it isn't surprising that he opted to face the world from the adult perspective. But it also meant that he couldn't find any happiness. He was trapped in the wrong body, the wrong country, the wrong time, and completely alone . . . No wonder he's messed up._

_I've already fixed part of that—I gave him the right body back and took him home to his own country, but there's no way I can take him back in time or force him to connect with new people so that he can replace the friends he's lost. The most I can do is try to stand in for them, for Erhardt von Wincott and Lawrence Weller and all the rest whose names I can't remember, until he's able to open up on his own._ I sighed. I had an unpleasant feeling that I'd bitten off more than I could chew. I wasn't Yuuri, who could wade into a mess like this with nothing but good intentions on his side and somehow get it to come out okay. But at the same time, I couldn't _not_ do this. 

Because Geneus really was my friend, damn it all. 

I took my glasses off and cleaned them, because I needed something to do with my hands. Above me, the soft crackle of Geneus' spell-work resumed, barely audible above the creaking of the deck. Slowly, the near-silence relaxed until it was comfortable again. 

After a while Geneus muttered a word too quietly to make it out, and the crackling noises stopped. 

"My concentration is beginning to waver," he said in response to my enquiring glance. "And if we are to keep up appearances, we need to check on our charge." 

When we got back to the cabin, we found Josak sitting by a porthole, fanning himself with some confection made of very large feathers. 

"Oh, good, it's you two. I was getting bored out of my mind. Care for a game of hoket?" What looked very much like a deck of playing cards came out from behind the feathers, and Josak smirked as he fanned them. 

"Not for money," Geneus said. 

"Oh, are you worried about losing?" 

"No, it means you will not be as violent when you start accusing me of cheating. And in any case, I doubt Shouri knows how to play." 

"I'm sure he can learn. He's pretty quick, and it isn't a complicated game." 

"What's in it for me?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest. 

"I treat you to dinner when we get to Big Cimaron?" 

"You would have ended up doing that anyway," I pointed out. "You and Geneus have almost all the money—Gwendal only gave me a bit of pocket change." 

"Huh. You're a tough nut to crack. I know you don't have a sweet tooth, you probably _do_ have a girlfriend back home, so offering to introduce you to people is no good, and I'm not going to be able to get a proper bath on board this tub any more than you are." Josak snapped his fingers. "I know! We're going to need a carriage anyway, to maintain our cover. You can ride inside with me while Geneus-sama drives, although it's going to look a bit odd. How does that sound?" 

"Like I'd take you up on it if I thought you were serious," I said. "But I guess it's this or go back up on deck and watch the water." 

"That's the spirit! Now, like I said, it's a simple game. The object is to collect cards that match in rank or in suit, or that form certain special hands—" Josak was shuffling as he spoke. 

"Slow down a bit, okay? I've never seen a deck of cards from this world before." Although the game itself sounded as though it was a bit like poker. Or maybe gin rummy—hard to tell. 

"Oh. Sorry." Josak grinned sheepishly and handed me the cards. 

I started to get an uncomfortable feeling as I went through them. I figured out right away that there were four suits, just like with a normal card deck from Earth, except that these looked like they were associated with the four elements. They had face cards, too, three to a suit, and four special cards that looked like they didn't have a suit. The problem was with the ordinary, non-face cards. Each had a picture of its suit on it, a flame or a rock or whatever, and what was probably a number. 

Except that I couldn't read them. 

"Shouri?" 

I flushed. "The numbers . . . I can't . . . Anissina's translation devices only work on spoken language, and anyway I'm not wearing one right now. On Earth, we put two suit-symbols on the two, three on the three, and so on, so I thought it would be okay, but . . ." 

Josak winced. "Sorry, my fault. I'd forgotten, but the young master couldn't read at first either." 

"Get me something to write with," Geneus said. 

Josak rummaged around in a trunk for a bit and came up with something that looked sort of like a mechanical pencil, plus some paper. 

"These are the numbers," Geneus said, writing rapidly but neatly. "Zero through eleven, you see? And the alphabet. You may want to annotate this in some way that you will understand," he added, handing me the pencil. 

I used the Roman alphabet for that, because it was easier than trying to twist kana around to fit the symbols for single consonants and vowels, especially at the speed at which he was giving me the sound values. Really, though, the otherworld alphabet was better-designed, or at least with forty-one letters you could differentiate between all the vowels, and they didn't have any letters doing double-duty like you do when you're trying to write English. Counting in base-twelve was going to be enough of a nuisance without my needing to deal with that, too. 

Hoket turned out to combine a poker-like scoring system with gameplay that involved passing cards around the table as well as drawing from the deck, and it really did need at least three players, to avoid having the person who decided how many cards to pass left be the same as the one who decided how many to pass right, or either of them being the same as the dealer. By the time we'd been playing for an hour, I was starting to get used to the numbers . . . which I think might be why Geneus kept it up, although it was clear he wasn't entirely happy. 

It was those four extra cards with no suits that were causing the problem: _Maoh_ , _Sage_ , _Sword_ ,and _Box_ , adorned with images of Shin'ou, the Great Sage, Morgif, and what looked like the Mirror at the Bottom of the Sea. Josak's deck was hand-painted, probably expensive, and the likenesses of the two men were good. Geneus didn't do anything so obvious as clinging to the Maoh card or passing off the Sage even when it wasn't the best thing for his hand, but I could tell from the slight tremor in his fingers when he held one or the other or both. Other than that, he was good—really, I got the impression from the way that Josak was frowning and the pile of coin-substitute wood chips that was making its way across the table that he was _scary_ -good. 

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were using majutsu to cheat," Josak said with a crooked grin as he shifted the last of his wood chips over to the pile in front of Geneus. 

"I scarcely need to. I spent a lifetime—albeit a short one—as a professional gambler in the western kingdoms. Although the set of special hands is a bit different there, given that their augment cards are King, Queen, Horse, and Snake, in honour of some myth that I can't quite remember at the moment." 

Josak spluttered for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Oh, man, and here I thought that line about me trying to do something violent to you was just a joke! Shows what I know. But why didn't you fleece Shouri-sama too?" 

"He did," I said. "See? Just five chips." I had some splinters and sawdust too, but those didn't count. 

"But I was the one who won most of yours," Josak pointed out. 

"Shouri was not overconfident," Geneus said. "I played him fairly. You, on the other hand, needed to learn a bit of humility." 

He picked up the cards, shuffled them briefly, and then spread them out on the table . . . in perfect order by number and suit. Josak stared. 

"Damn. I didn't know people could really do that." 

Geneus shrugged. "Like most such tricks, it is simple enough when you know how." 

After lunch, Josak made me permanent dealer. I rolled my eyes and went along with it. 

We played cards most of the afternoon, too. Supper was . . . well. Josak got invited to the captain's table, and came back looking disgruntled because as a lady, he hadn't been able to stuff his face the way he'd wanted to. I didn't have much sympathy for him, because my supper was bits of salt pork fried with onions and served on burnt toast, the same as the sailors got. Geneus, who had been playing bodyguard again, got the same as I did, except cold, and how he managed to choke it down I don't know—it was nauseating enough warm. 

Shortly after breakfast the next day—burnt toast again—Geneus asked to borrow my sword. I handed it over to him willingly enough, but I also followed him back into the cabin to see what he was going to do with it, since he didn't seem to mind. 

I got the idea quickly enough when he gripped the scabbarded weapon between his knees and brought out the . . . charm, piece of rock, whatever you wanted to call it, that he'd been working on up on deck the previous morning. Or I sort of did. The sword Josak had selected for me was utterly plain, one single piece of metal with nowhere that I could see to put a rock. 

Geneus put the charm aside on the table around which we'd spent most of the previous day playing cards, and cupped his hands around the handle of the sword—hilt, that was the proper word. I could feel the pressure of one hell of a lot of elemental spirits gathering in the room, and Josak watched with interest as the disc at the top of the handle started to glow red, then slowly scaled up to white hot. Geneus' eyes were narrow and his face intent as he picked up the crystal fragment and prodded it into the molten metal, being very careful not to touch the glowing liquid. Then he relaxed, wiped his forehead, and the light began to die. 

"Are you alright?" I asked, because the expression on his face was kind of pinched, like I remembered from some of the worse days with the White Crow. 

"Merely a bit tired. Fire is almost as fickle to manipulate as air, and much more dangerous." 

I blinked. "I thought your contract was with water, like mine." Then I almost bit my tongue. _Way to go, Shouri. Now he'll know you were spying on him and Greta in the garden._

"It was the way of my tribe to bind ourselves in balance to all four elements, rather than to just one as the other Mazoku do. Overall, it gave us greater power, although our ability with any single element was less than it would have been with an exclusive contract. Here." 

The metal of the sword was dull when I took it, without the slightest hint of red. There was still some residual warmth as I passed my hand a fraction of an inch above the roughened steel of the grip, but it didn't feel like it was going to burn me, so I wrapped my fingers around it and gave it a tug, revealing about an inch of the blade. 

Instantly, I knew I wasn't holding it right, and adjusted my grip. Yes. Like that. I slid it the rest of the way from the scabbard and tested the balance. Discovered it was just a hair point-heavy. 

Then I put it back in place and let go of the hilt, and immediately wondered how I had been able to tell. 

"It works," I said quietly. "It's going to take some getting used to, though." 

Geneus nodded. "Then I suggest we go up on deck and see just how _well_ it works. We have less than three days before we land in Cimaron, and we need to be ready."


	9. Chapter 7

I leaned over the edge of the narrow bed in pitch blackness and fought to keep my stomach from turning itself inside-out a third time. 

Gods, that had been horrific. How could anyone have found all that shifting flesh _erotic_? Little Shouri had been quite pert when I'd woken up, and probably the only thing that had saved me from becoming a eunuch was that I'd also wanted to tear my eyes out. And then the nausea had hit, and I'd ended up draped over the edge of my bunk. 

A sudden flare of light, startling me enough that I lost control of my stomach and retched up another half-mouthful of bile to add to the yellow puddle on the floor beside my boots. 

"Shouri? You cannot possibly be seasick—this is the calmest weather we have had yet. What happened?" 

"The fish merchant who has the cabin across from us was dreaming about getting home to his wife tomorrow, I think. She must weigh about five hundred pounds." 

Geneus swung down from the top bunk, neatly avoiding my puddle, and perched on the edge of the bed beside me, an ivory and ebony blur. "Are you all right?" 

"Mostly. My stomach won't stop knotting up. Just the thought that I was turned on by . . . by _that_ makes me sick." I brushed a strand of sweat-soaked hair out of my face and thought about reaching for my glasses, but it seemed like too much effort. 

"Not you, but the fish merchant. Any arousal you may have experienced was his fault. Shared sensation like that can be confusing." Hands cupped over my stomach and diffused blessed healing through the blankets. "Has this been going on ever since . . . that night?" 

"Pretty much," I admitted. "I was Josak the first night, digging through a pile of corpses looking for Conrad, who was supposed to be under them all somewhere." And I'd been in enough pain in the dream that it had taken a while to go away after I'd woken up, too, but I wasn't going to tell Geneus that. "Last night, I think one of the sailors dozed off on deck. Mermaids. That one wasn't too bad, except at the very end when they started eating the poor bastard. And then tonight, the fish merchant. Overall, I think I like the nightmares better. They hurt sometimes, but they're mostly not disgusting, and I can shake them off." 

Geneus sighed. "Being in such close quarters is never pleasant for a neophyte wind-wielder. I will attempt to lay a protection on you for now, and matters will improve somewhat when we are on shore and you need no longer spend the nights in close proximity to so many minds, but you are going to need to train your powers until you are back in control." 

"I was afraid of that. And . . . it's going to happen two more times, isn't it?" 

"If you can master wind and water, you need not fear earth. It is the most patient of the elements, and will wait until you are ready for it." 

"And fire?" 

Another sigh. "I am hoping that it will be many years before fire makes itself known to you. Shin'ou took it up last of the four, and even though his will was well-trained by that point, he nearly burned down our encampment that night." Fingers tangled in my too-long, too-pale hair, touching me lightly just behind the ear. "Perhaps it is for the best that your brother makes no attempt to consciously cultivate his powers . . . but you set your foot on this path before I had even met you, and you cannot safely leave it now. You have a strong mind despite your youth. I have every confidence that you will grow into yourself." 

I felt something like a layer of the finest silk settle over my mind, soothing and protecting places I hadn't even known were raw. It was my turn to sigh as Geneus lifted his hand from my hair and the light went out again. I dozed off while I was still listening to the soft noises he made getting back into his bunk, and this time I woke to sunlight spilling through the inner door without sharing anyone else's dream. 

There was a visible yellowish stain on the floor beside my boots, and I grimaced at it as I dressed for the day. Yesterday's shirt, right, and layer the jacket with the hard leather patches on the shoulders and upper chest overtop. Sword. Boots. 

I stuck my head through the inner door, but Josak wasn't there. Catching a glimpse of land through the open porthole, I decided the others had to be up on deck. 

I stepped out of the cabin corridor and into the sunlight just in time to be almost thrown off my feet as the ship grated against the edge of a dock and was made fast, with scowls and curses from the sailors. 

"There you are, Shouri." Geneus' voice drew my attention over to where he and Josak were standing over by the rail. The spy was wearing something turquoise and ruffly that might have looked quite fetching on him if not for his biceps. "Guard our lady while I make arrangements for a carriage." 

"'Guard our lady'?" I muttered to Josak as Geneus vaulted down to the dock, not bothering to wait for the gangplank that the sailors were wrestling into place. 

Josak smiled behind his fan. "He was probably worried about being overheard," he whispered back. "Almost everyone on the ship is up here right now, for one reason or another. If there are too many people for me to keep track of where they all are, there are probably too many for him, too. He does a pretty damned good job, though." 

"Why did you let me sleep in?" I leaned back against the rail, keeping my voice down and pretending to watch the sailors suspiciously, with my hand resting on the hilt of my sword. The wind off the ocean was cuttingly cold, and my shivers probably destroyed the image of a conscientious bodyguard despite my best efforts, unfortunately. 

Josak shrugged. "Geneus said you needed the rest. You do look better than you have for the past couple of days. He's been working you pretty hard." 

I shrugged too. "I asked him to." Conrad's reflexes or no, I had to learn what I could do with the damned sword so I could figure out if it was or wasn't a good idea to draw it in a given situation, so I'd spent a lot of time on deck waving it around while Geneus blocked me with his knife. The sailors had seemed to find it entertaining. "I want to be able to look after myself as soon as possible." And I was damned if I was going to mention those dreams. 

Josak smiled, tapped the edge of his fan against his upper lip, and didn't say anything. We stayed there in silence until Geneus came to fetch us. 

The hotel we went to was nice enough, but crowded. Too crowded. 

"I am sorry, madam, but there simply are no suites left," the clerk said. "Believe me, I would offer you one if I could." If only to get the three of us and Josak's considerable supply of trunks out of the lobby, his expression seemed to say. 

"Oh, but our carriage is supposed to be delivered here! Whatever shall I do?" Josak's falsetto still sounded completely unconvincing, and I fought not to wince. 

"Well, I do have one ordinary room left. If you could see fit to have your guards sleep on the floor beside your bed, we may be able to accommodate you . . ." 

Geneus made a show of looking over at Josak and getting his nod before saying, "That will have to do, assuming you can provide storage for the trunks m'lady will not be needing tonight. Her baggage will not fit in a mere . . . single room." He pronounced the words as though they described the most vulgar thing he had ever heard, and I made a mental note to ask him how exactly he got the effect, because it was beyond anything I had ever heard Bob manage. 

Of course, I got to carry the back end of the first trunk along with one of the porters, while the other led the way up the stairs and around a corner to an open door. Geneus ducked inside first, then nodded to the rest of us, somehow managing to keep the unnecessary precautions from looking too theatrical. The porter nearly dumped the trunk on my foot as we wedged it into the narrow space at the foot of the bed, and then I had to go back for another one to stack on top of it. And help carry the other three, including the really heavy one that I thought had to be full of rocks, to a little storage cubby under the basement stairs. Only then was I free to go back up to the room, try to sprawl backwards on the bed . . . and whack my head on the wall, because it really wasn't all that wide. 

"This is smaller than the cabin on the ship," I said, sitting up and rubbing my head. The slice of floor beside the bed was barely wide enough to stand squarely in it, facing toward the door. 

Josak snorted. "It's smaller than the rope locker on most ships. I figure I'm probably gonna have to let you two have the bed and take the floor myself, or you're going to be sleeping practically on top of each other. We're all gonna be squished in here like sardines. I wish we could have stayed somewhere else, but my contact . . ." 

"For one night, it scarcely matters," Geneus said, sitting down beside me. "If we need to use that tent you brought, we will be forced into even closer quarters." 

"Still, it doesn't seem right." 

"If we don't care, why should you?" I asked. 

"I dunno, it just feels . . ." 

Someone knocked on the door. Geneus immediately came to his feet, and I did too—playing the part again. 

"Who is it?" Josak asked in that hideous falsetto. 

"Madam Josara Brentley? I was commissioned to deliver your coach, and there is a small difficulty . . ." 

Josak looked at me and jerked his chin in the direction of the door. _Next time, I'm hiring someone else to do the scutwork,_ I thought as I opened it. Except that there hopefully wouldn't _be_ a next time. 

The man on the other side of the door had brown hair and brown eyes and an ordinary kind of face that I don't think I could have picked out of a crowd. His clothes were brown too, and he appeared to be unarmed. 

"What's the problem?" I asked gruffly. 

The brown man actually wrung his hands—I'd never seen anyone do that before outside of those period dramas Yuuri sometimes watched. "The coach itself is fine, but your horses . . . the army is trying to expand the cavalry, due to the unrest . . ." 

"Spit it out," I snapped. 

"The coach team . . . was confiscated three days ago. I'm very sorry. I tried to tell them that the horses weren't mine, that I hadn't exceeded the ownership limits for someone who isn't a breeder or a trader, but they wouldn't listen." 

"Oh, no! Those poor darling animals . . ." Josak's falsetto burned my ears. 

I felt Geneus' hand on my shoulder, and stepped aside to let him take my place in the doorway. "Bring the coach anyway, as you were told to do—I assume you have the means? We will find something to pull it." 

The brown man licked his lips, staring up into the shadows visible under the edge of Geneus' hood. "Yes, sir. And . . . my payment?" 

"Will be received in full once the coach is here and determined to be intact. We agree that the actions of the army are outside your control." 

"Thank you, sir!" 

"Go, then." Geneus stepped back and closed the door. For several moments, no one spoke. Then Josak sighed. 

"Well, isn't that just great?" he said in his normal voice. "This is the first time I've seen one of Lord von Voltaire's arrangements fall through this way." 

"Your friend Lord Weller has done a better job of destabilizing Lanzhil than he knew," Geneus said. "Do you have any idea what kind of coach Lord von Voltaire had ordered up?" 

"Mmh, one of the small ones, I think. You can pull one with a team of two, but they usually put four on them, just in case you have to run away from something." 

"Four mules should suffice, then. I doubt Lanzhil has bothered establishing quotas for them yet." 

Josak snorted. "I doubt Lanzhil even knows what a mule is. But we still have a problem." 

I wasn't about to come right out and say, _We do?_ but I kind of raised my eyebrows in Josak's direction. 

"Madam Josara can't run her own errands," the red-head said. "And she shouldn't know a mule from a hole in the ground, anyway. M'Lord Sage is probably going to be recognized if he wanders around the city too much . . . and you don't know the first thing about buying mules, Shouri-sama." 

"We could probably make it work," I said, thinking hard. "If you and I go, and you slip me pointers on what to look for in between complaining about everything . . ." I was pretty much describing the girl I'd dated for a couple of weeks right before I'd met Keiko. About the only positive thing I'd gotten out of that relationship was the knowledge that a particular colour of blue looked good on me. 

"I can deal with the likelihood of recognition easily enough," Geneus said. He ran his hands over his face and down the length of his braid, erasing the purple markings from his skin and turning his hair a chocolate brown similar to Conrad's. "Best, I think, that our merchant's wife not leave her room. The last news I had from Cimaron had the city under martial law, and that tends to make the streets dangerous. Especially for women." 

"You think they'd try to manhandle me?" Josak grinned lopsidedly. "You're sweet, M'Lord Sage." 

"All it would take is one drunken soldier slipping his hand under your skirt to cause a commotion," Geneus said. "We are trying not to attract attention, if you would recall." 

"True enough. So I guess it's the two of you, then—if that's okay with you, Shouri-sama?" 

_Why do I have a feeling that I'm just a figurehead here?_ Well, okay, I _knew_ I was just a figurehead. Really, it was a political appointment: Josak wasn't about to trust Geneus or anyone else who might have worked for Alazon, and Geneus had been so badly hurt that, at this point, I doubted he could completely trust anyone. Except me. 

It didn't really help that we had to reverse roles whenever we were in public, either, I reflected as I followed Geneus out of the inn. Whenever anyone could see us, Josak was in charge, and I was supposed to play the part of very junior guard. I huffed a sigh, which the wind, knife-cold here on the edge of winter, stole from me. 

The growl of my stomach was louder, loud enough that Geneus shot an enquiring glance over his shoulder. 

"Too much burnt toast," I told him, and shivered: the wind really was cold. 

I got a half-smile in return. "We will see what we may find to soothe your stomach, then. And you will need clothing more suited to traveling in such weather." 

I nodded—I hate shopping for clothes, but I could see the necessity in this case. 

We passed our first soldiers as we turned away from the harbour to climb one of the steep streets that might have led up to the royal palace if you went far enough. There were twelve of them: ten marching in step, with spears leaning against their shoulders, with what I think may have been an officer in front and a sergeant in back. The officer watched us as we shifted over to the far side of the street to stay out of their way, but apparently he didn't think one swordsman and one archer could be much of a threat, even if the latter was wearing a hood that made it difficult to get a good look at his face. 

"Hopefully, any others we meet today will be as disciplined," Geneus said softly as we turned down another street that was more-or-less parallel to the shore, but at a higher level. 

"I take it that you don't believe they will be." 

"No. The core troops are well-trained, but nearly a third of the Cimaronese army is composed of conscripts from the smaller nations, and some of them are little more than bandits. Fortunately, they have few skills and poor equipment, but I nonetheless hope that none of them are in the city." 

Geneus had been watching signs for some time now. Abruptly, he made a left turn and entered a building that displayed an image of fruit and honey and . . . something triangular. 

Inside was a small restaurant, or maybe more like a diner, with stools and a long counter and several customers, mostly women, lingering over cups of tea. Geneus casually pushed his hood back and crossed the room to a stool at the far end of the counter. A pot of tea and two cups appeared in front of us before I'd even sat down properly, courtesy of the young man who appeared to be running the place. 

"Geneus-sama! We haven't seen you here in a while." 

"Business has been keeping me away from Spensport," Geneus said with a shrug. "However, while I am here, I thought I would indulge my friend and myself with a late breakfast." 

"Of course. Just a moment, please." 

"You've been here before," I said quietly, pouring myself some tea. It turned out to be more like chai than Japan's ubiquitous o-cha, sweetened and mixed with spices. Maybe it was just as well—I think I might have been suddenly and violently homesick if I'd been served something familiar. I hadn't been in this world nearly so long on my previous visits, and I'd volunteered to be stuck here longer yet . . . 

"This shop has been in existence for more than two thousand years," Geneus said quietly. "It has changed little in all that time, and is still run by the descendants of the original owner. Which makes it quite unusual in a human nation like Big Cimaron. I was . . . somewhat shocked . . . to discover it had survived." 

Which meant that he had found the place first when he was still Geneus Stornway, founder of the White Crow. 

"I'm kind of surprised you told him your name." I nodded in the direction of the young man, who was now doing something involving batter and a hot pan. 

"'Geneus' is actually not uncommon in eastern Cimaron, and some old-fashioned families here in the west still use it as well. And physical descriptions of me tend to concentrate on the characteristics that make me stand out from normal Cimaronese." 

Such as black hair and facial markings, right. _So Lanzhil's men aren't likely to spot him right now no matter what name he gives, and it isn't worth their while to check on every Geneus in the country, either. That's a bit of a relief._

"Do we need to buy anything other than the mules and some winter clothes?" I asked, changing the subject . . . and reflecting that I should try to get a better idea of what supplies we had, even if I was just supposed to be a figurehead. 

"A bit of fresh food. We should be able to get that easily enough. Good mules may be more difficult, since the army uses them to transport supplies, but it helps that we can afford to take older animals. I would have liked at least one good riding horse, though." 

Plates were deposited in front of us, each bearing something like a crepe, wrapped into a cone and filled with . . . something. I took up my knife and spork and cut mine open. Fruit and . . . custard? Taking a tentative taste, I discovered it wasn't quite as sweet as it looked. Went well with the tea, in fact. And _much_ better than burnt toast. It wasn't until I was wiping my plate clean with the narrow end of the crepe that I realized I'd been too engrossed in the food to speak, or even look around. 

"I can see why they've been here for two thousand years," I said to Geneus, who just offered me a faint smile and counted a half-dozen coins out onto the counter. He was moving toward the door when the young man who had served us caught my elbow. Surprised, I jerked back— _he couldn't be one of the assassins, could he?_ Probably not, since he let me go. 

"I'm sorry," came the quiet comment. "I should have known better, but we don't get many fighters in here. You're the first person Geneus-sama has ever brought with him, and, well, I just wanted to congratulate you. You're a very lucky man." 

It took me a moment to parse that, and when I did, I could feel my face heat up. Even when I was in a real relationship, and with a girl, I wasn't used to having random strangers bring it up. In Japan, it's just . . . not done. "It isn't . . . we aren't like that," I said. "He's my teacher, that's all." 

"Ah. Well, I'm doubly sorry, then—and you're still very lucky." 

Outside, the wind seemed less cutting now that my stomach was full. Or maybe it was just that I was still flushed with embarrassment. 

"You did not handle it all that badly," Geneus said. "Although if something similar happens again in the remoter areas of the countryside, I would suggest that you be more offended." 

I blinked. "I thought that sort of thing—two men being together—" I forced myself to spell it out baldly. "—was accepted in this world." _And if not, why is my brother engaged to Wolfram von Bielefelt?_

"In Shin Makoku it is considered unexceptionable—impossible for it not to be, when most Mazoku are bisexual. In cosmopolitan areas of the human lands, it is, as you say, accepted, but considerably more unusual. In rural areas, however . . ." Geneus shrugged. 

_They probably run you out of town. Great. Wait a minute—_ most _Mazoku are bisexual?_ Bob had never mentioned anything like that to me. Maybe the human blood mixed into all the Earth Mazoku damped it down somehow. _Which makes me . . . a throwback?_

It feels kind of weird to realize that you're normal after all, just not the kind of normal you always thought you were supposed to be. Not the kind of normal you feel you need to be. 

It seemed to me, as we made our way along parallel to the harbour, that there should have been more people in the streets. Most of those we did see seemed almost furtive, slinking along close to the buildings with their eyes on the ground. 

The exceptions were the soldiers. It seemed like we passed a unit every other block, either moving from one place to the next, or standing guard at what must have been key intersections. After what Geneus had said earlier, I was a bit . . . disturbed . . . to see that they came in two distinct types: disciplined and polished units like the one we'd first seen, with matching uniforms and officers in long white coats like the one I'd taken from Conrad's closet, and scruffier-looking ones with mismatched weapons and armour. They all watched us, but the scruffy ones sometimes eyed me with leers on their faces. It was enough to make me feel a little ill. I couldn't imagine anyone, of any orientation, being attracted to that bunch of disreputable assholes. 

I was grateful that Geneus had put his hood back up. The thought of them looking at _him_ that way made my maryoku ripple angrily under my skin. Hadn't he already suffered enough? I wasn't going to let him be hurt again—physical risk was one thing, but emotional— 

"Shouri. In here." 

I came back to myself with an embarrassed flush, wondering how long I'd been standing outside the secondhand clothing shop looking like an idiot. 

Inside, Geneus went efficiently through garments stacked on shelves. After a moment, he handed me a coat, made of layered dark grey wool and cut kind of like a trench coat, and told me to put it on. Somehow, I wasn't surprised when it fit, even over my jacket. Geneus tweaked it straight, arranged the left side so that the hilt of my sword was sticking out through a convenient slit, and then went to the counter. We were leaving the building a few moments later, which made it, overall, the least painful clothes shopping I had ever done. Although the extra cloth flapping against my legs did take some getting used to. 

Getting to the livestock market required climbing halfway up the hill to the landward wall of the town before we could turn and head for the city gate. My thigh muscles were aching unbelievably by the time we hit the right cross street . . . and the higher up we got, the more soldiers we seemed to see, although fewer of them wore that scruffy, mismatched armour. Many of them gave us sidelong looks, but none of them actually moved to stop us. I guess that, not knowing we were Mazoku, they figured a squad of twelve could stop anything the two of us could do. 

The livestock market kicked me in the nose before I actually saw it. The entire area smelled of, well, animal crap. Which was probably why they had it out on the edge of town. It wasn't much comfort to know that it was probably worse in summer. 

There were cows, and sheep, and shaggy goats, and rabbits, and chickens. Lots and lots of chickens, except that they cawed like crows. And some of the goats had purple spots. What I didn't see was anything that looked like a horse, or even a donkey—mules did look like donkeys, didn't they? I was pretty sure I'd never seen one before. 

Geneus led the way around the edge of the market to an area of mostly-empty pens. There were a few horses here, and some donkeys, and one pen in particular held a dozen halfway-in-between creatures that had to be mules. 

Geneus went straight to that one and began looking the animals over, and I tagged along, since I was best off staying near my bodyguard—just in case. All I could really say about the mules was that two of them were grey, one was spotted, the others were brown with occasional bits of white, and there was one in particular, a bit smaller than the others, who seemed to think I had something interesting in my pockets, because he kept sticking his nose through the fence and trying to poke it into them. 

"If you would like to examine the animals more closely, sirs, I can let you into the pen." 

I'd noticed the scrawny, brown-haired boy approaching the corral, but I'd written him off as a danger pretty much immediately, given that he looked like he was all of twelve years old and hauling a full bucket of water that steamed in the cold air. He grunted as he lifted the thing and poured the contents into the end of the trough that was sticking out through the fence, splashing some on his ragged, greyish trousers in the process. 

"That would be appreciated," Geneus said. "With whom do we negotiate in order to make a purchase?" 

The boy took a moment, blinking, to work that out. "Oh! Trader Losfel is at the tavern on the edge of the market. He'll probably come here once someone tells him he has customers—usually that takes ten minutes or so." 

Geneus nodded, and gestured at the gate to the corral. The boy tugged out a key that had been on a string around his neck and undid the padlock holding it shut. 

I followed them inside, and instantly wished I hadn't as mules crowded around me, bumping against me and checking my pockets for whatever it was that they expected to find there. It was like being on a Tokyo subway during rush hour, only worse, because every step I took made the smell of mule manure waft up around me until my eyes started to water behind my glasses. 

Geneus didn't seem to be bothered by the stench, or perhaps he was just better at hiding it. "Are any of these _not_ broken to harness?" he asked the boy. 

"Well, a few of them were pack-carriers. Take the spotted one, for instance—the trader just bought her yesterday from a tinker who brought her down from the north with a baron's ransom in furs. Winter came in early up there, so the regular caravans aren't going through." 

Geneus' mouth thinned. The news clearly didn't thrill him. "Show me what you have. We need a team of four." 

The boy patted the neck of a large, dark brown mule with a splash of white across its forehead. "Well, this one is—" 

"That isn't how you show an animal to a customer, you useless sack of bones!" 

We all turned as the gate to the corral creaked open, then shut again. If this was Trader Losfel, he was clearly a drunk. I'd never actually seen anyone with a bright red nose like that before. It dominated his otherwise nondescript face. Other than that, he was short, balding, with a beer belly distinctly visible under his coat—the sort of out-of-shape middle-aged man that Earth had by the millions. 

The moment he was in range, he casually hit the boy across the face in a way that would have constituted a marriage proposal in Shin Makoku or an actionable case of assault in most of North America. The boy steadied himself against the side of the mule whose neck he had been patting a moment earlier. He didn't say anything, but his eyes burned with hatred, and without even realizing it, I'd clenched both hands into fists. I hated it when I saw defenseless people being hurt, but in this case, I didn't dare do anything. Defending the boy would attract attention, and we were trying to avoid that. But that didn't keep my palms from itching or my maryoku from shifting under my skin. 

Buying mules took much longer than I had expected. Geneus rejected three of the animals out of hand, citing defects that I couldn't even see, but Losfel had the boy lead out each of the remaining eight in turn while the trader praised them to the skies. Then there was a lot of time spent examining hooves and teeth and other random bits of equine. Well, random as far as I could tell, although I'm sure there was a reason for it all. 

Geneus selected one grey mule and three brown ones, including the one the boy had tried to show us first, and he and Losfel began arguing about money. It was interesting to watch. Losfel probably fancied himself a great haggler, but he was obviously uncomfortable talking to someone whose face was mostly hidden in shadow. Geneus, on the other hand . . . well, he might have looked to someone else like he was taking this seriously, but something in his stance and the set of his shoulders told me that he was only haggling because it was expected. 

While they talked, I strolled over to the corral and leaned against the fence beside the boy, wincing as I saw just what shade of purple the side of his face was turning. 

"Are you okay?" I asked. "I know a little houjutsu. I can probably heal you up, if you don't think he—" I nodded at Losfel. "—would notice." Hopefully, neither the boy nor the trader would be able to tell the difference between one type of magic and the other. 

"I don't have any way to pay you," the boy said out of the side of his mouth. 

"I'm not asking you to. I just hate guys like that. And I can always use a little more practice." Which was true. Ulrike had always told me that the more I worked with my maryoku, the better my control would become. 

"Well, then, even if he does notice, it's better than only being able to chew with one side of my mouth for the next few days. Go ahead." 

Geneus had taught me a little about healing since the business with the little girl—or, more accurately, he'd laid out some principles for me over a couple of our endless games of hoket, back on board the ship—so I knew physical contact would make it easier. The boy flinched and shivered as I laid cold fingers against the side of his neck. Extending my focus, I coaxed blood away from areas where it wasn't supposed to pool, guiding it back into the intact parts of the capillaries, beyond the damage, and infused the boy gently with the warmth of my maryoku. 

"That's the best I can do," I said, lifting my hand away. "Why do you work for that man, anyway?" 

"Because it's better than starving," came the prompt reply. The boy flexed his jaw from side to side. "This is a lot better. Thanks." 

"You're welcome. But shouldn't your parents be—" 

"They're dead," came the quiet reply before I could even finish the question. 

"I'm sorry," I said. 

"Why? It isn't like you told the army to take my da and then send him back in a coffin. Or started the fire that burned down our house. Or made my ma go back in to try to save my little sister." The boy closed his eyes, and a shiver ran through him. "Sorry. I . . . haven't been able to say this stuff to anyone else. You're the first person who's been willing to listen." 

_Come with us._ It was on the tip of my tongue to say it, but we were on a damned secret mission, and this kid probably hated Mazoku, and we were already stuffed into that inn room like sardines. In other words, it wasn't _practical_. 

And that really made me mad. 

"I just wish there was something I could do to help," I said lamely. 

He looked up, studying my face for a moment as he chewed on his lower lip. Then he nodded. "Maybe you can. I have a big brother, but I haven't seen him in years. If you could find him . . ." 

"Well, we're going to be traveling around a lot, so I should be able to keep an eye out, at least. What's he like?" 

"His name is Kathal. He has blue eyes and blonde hair—really golden blonde, not like yours. I figure you're about the same age. He used to be really short—he wasn't much older than I am when he left, so he should have grown some. I'm Damyen, by the way." 

"Shouri." I looked Damyen over more carefully. Brown eyes. Brown hair of that scruffy intermediate length that wouldn't stay out of your eyes but couldn't easily be tied back, either. He even had a bit of a tan, despite the pale winter sunlight. "I'm having kind of a hard time picturing your brother." 

"Oh, he doesn't look like me! I guess some people would say he isn't really my brother, either. My da found him wandering around in the forest in a trip up north. They figured he was about three years old. No one in the local villages seemed to know who he was or where he was from, so da brought him back and he and ma kind of adopted him." 

"So did he leave because he wanted to find his real parents?" 

"Nuh-uh." A firm headshake. "A few months before he left, weird things started happening around him. Fires starting where they weren't supposed to be, or jumping off the candle, just because he was nearby. He had to carry a bucket of water with him. Then these two guys from something called the White Crow showed up and said they might be able to help, and, well, he thought it would be best if he went with them." 

"I can see why." Letting their son go with a pair of perfect strangers had probably seemed like a better deal to Damyen and Kathal's parents than letting the house accidentally burn down (even thought that had eventually happened anyway). But the whole thing sounded really weird, especially the part about the fires. Some kind of spontaneous houjutsu manifestation? Why only fire, then? Or . . . _Wait. They don't know who this guy's real parents are, and Damyen already said he was small for his age. And one element in particular was freaking out around him. Which makes him, just maybe, Mazoku? But then why was he in northern Cimaron?_ "Um, Damyen, your brother . . . would you say he looked _young_ for his age, rather than just _small_?" 

"Mmm. Maybe. Ma used to say something like that, sometimes." 

_Stray Mazoku in northern Cimaron. I hope that doesn't have anything to do with Alazon or the assassins, but right now I'm not going to bet on it. I'm going to have to tell Geneus about this,_ I admitted to myself, and repressed a sigh. "Okay, I'll ask around about him. My boss might know something about this White Crow, too. I'll try to find out." 

Damyen gave me a grin. "Thanks, Shouri. And if you ever need to find the best mules in town again . . ." 

" . . . I'll know who to ask," I said. 

" _Boy!_ Quit wasting your time talking to the customers and come get these four! They're to go on down to the Mermaid's Anchor." 

Damyen's grin disappeared as he took the lead ropes of our four mules, but I would have sworn his step was lighter now than it had been since he'd first shown up with that water bucket. _Kathal. Right. I'm not going to forget._

I couldn't bring up Mazoku or the White Crow with Geneus while we were walking down a public street, though. Someone might overhear just the wrong thing. So I stuffed my hands in my pockets and held my peace as we worked our way back down and across the city until we were on the same level as the docks. 

The open-air market occupied a space bounded by several warehouses. The entire huge square was packed with stalls separated by narrow aisles, and unlike the rest of the city, it was packed with people. Somehow, though, none of them ever quite seemed to touch Geneus, so as long as I stayed directly behind him, I didn't have any trouble getting around either. 

"Fresh food", at this time of year, turned out to mean root vegetables and hard fruits and cheese and a couple of loaves of bread and . . . well, I have to admit that I didn't understand the negotiation at the butcher's stall all that well, but it seemed to involve half a cooked _something_ , all to be delivered to the inn early tomorrow morning. I also found myself the proud new owner of a pair of fur-lined leather gloves that, according to Geneus, would keep my hands warm without messing up my grip on my sword hilt too much. 

We stopped at a stall that dealt in medicines and trinkets, too, and Geneus bargained over a jar of something that he said was good for frostbite—which, unfortunately, was a problem we were likely to need to deal with as we got further north. He bought something else, too, something small that he slipped into his pocket before I could get a good look at it. Mentally, I shrugged, assuming that it was simply private. 

I should have known that everything was going way too well. I mean, on my previous visits to Shin Makoku and its world, I'd never seemed to manage to go more than a few days between . . . adventures . . . so, really, it was surprising that the quiet period where no member of our little party had been attacked or kidnapped or what have you had gone on for as long as it had. 

It was one of the scruffy-looking squads of armed men that spread itself across the street in front of us, cutting us off. At first, I thought there were only eight of them. Then I realized that the sounds coming from behind us probably represented the other four. Carefully, I put my hand on my sword, and hoped that Geneus was right about my new gloves. 

"Do you have a purpose in doing this, or were you merely bored with your patrol?" Geneus asked the question as though he already knew the answer. 

The man who answered him with a smirk was probably their officer, or at least, he had what looked to my untrained eye like the best equipment. "Bright man. We're bored. More bored than I'd've thought possible before coming to this stinking city," he added. 

"Ah. Then I feel it only fair to warn you that you have made a mistake." 

A harsh laugh. "Bright . . . and cocky. I don't think we've made any mistake at all." 

"You waited until there were no witnesses. That was foolishness." An aura of pale light flared around Geneus, and he pulled something from his pocket—what, I wasn't sure. I could see the motion of his arm, but his body concealed his hand and whatever was gripped in it. "I will not permit you to touch my companion. Depart and leave us in peace." 

I bit back the instinctive, _I can look after myself!_ , and extended my focus instead. We weren't more than a block away from the docks, and the water . . . was . . . there! I held its location inside my mind, figuring I shouldn't do anything more . . . yet. There might be people over by the docks themselves, and water dragons leaping from the ocean would surely attract attention. 

Several of the soldiers muttered "Sorcerers!" or similar sentiments, and I returned to myself to realize that my own aura had flared up around me. Well, then, maybe it would scare them off . . . and then I noticed that three of them had auras too. Well, I could only _see_ two, but with my extended senses, I could _feel_ the one behind me and the nausea-inducing houseki that he held. From my training with Ulrike, I knew that the esoteric stones didn't affect me as badly as they did most Mazoku, but they still weren't fun to be around, and there were two of them here. 

Two of them . . . 

Which meant that the third man, the one that several other members of own his squad were staring at . . . wasn't using houjutsu? 

The air around us convulsed suddenly, and the auraless members of the squad of soldiers all folded with various cries or snarls. The ones that managed to stay conscious were trying frantically to stanch the blood that ran from their ears and noses, whipping their heads rapidly back and forth as though something had gone wrong inside them. Geneus' hand slid into mine, and I found myself being tugged to the left, toward a warehouse that had an external staircase running up its side. 

Something roared, and I felt my blood turn to ice. I hadn't actually seen the houjutsu creature that Geneus himself had created in the arena east of this very city, or the ones that he had used as a distraction in Shin Makoku while he ran for Shin'ou's temple, but I'd heard descriptions, and this one was . . . very like them. The two men with the houseki had joined hands, and were clearly throwing both their energies into maintaining the monster. The third man was . . . bending down and placing his hands flat on the ground . . . like Gwendal sometimes did when he was about to use majutsu . . . _Oh, shit!_

Geneus saw it too, because he turned and ran, flat out, ignoring the houjutsu beast, and dragging me along with him. He pulled me up onto the first step of the staircase running up the outside of the warehouse as the fracture in the earth reached our heels. I climbed as fast as I could, ignoring the stitch in my side, as the stairs also began to crumble under us. 

Fortunately, the warehouse itself seemed to have sturdier foundations, and the roof, when we hit it, was intact. Having reached temporary safety, I let myself double over and pant for breath for a few precious moments as a ripple of healing power washed through me: Geneus, extending his energies through our still-conjoined hands. 

"Shouri, lend me your maryoku." His voice was even-toned. Not particularly worried. I just nodded and let my own focus travel down my arm and up his, loosening my hold over my energies as Murata had taught me while we'd been packed in a closet with Yuuri, right before that debacle with the Cimaronese fleet. I could see what was in Geneus' other hand now: a short wand, tipped with a crystal that looked very much like a houseki, but clearly wasn't, or I would have felt it. A fake, and one he'd probably created before we even left Blood Pledge Castle, to let him pass off his tell-tale majutsu as houjutsu instead. 

He really did think of everything. Except maybe . . . "You aren't going to kill them, are you?" 

"Not if you do not wish it." 

Below us, the houjutsu beast found a foothold on the ruined staircase. Geneus' eyes narrowed, and I felt him do something small-scale and extremely precise that I couldn't quite follow. Then he did it again. 

A sound like breaking glass from below. The houjutsu beast vanished just as it was poised to leap up onto the roof with us. Shouts of consternation rose from below, and I realized I couldn't feel the houseki anymore. Or . . . those tiny little disconnected fragments of uncomfortable energy . . . had Geneus just _shattered_ them? A very useful and very nasty little trick, if so. 

Geneus immediately turned his attention elsewhere, though, and this time I felt a heavy drain on my maryoku as he reached out and down and _pushed_ at something. It felt like a wrestling match, the two of us fighting what had to be the third man for dominance over the earth beneath the building. The two of us together were stronger than one of him, of course, and I wasn't entirely surprised when I felt the resistance suddenly evaporate, and heard pounding feet from below. 

"He appears to have fled," Geneus said, releasing both my energy and my hand. My knees were like Jell-O, and I sat down quickly, on the grounds that it was marginally more dignified than falling down. "The others are unconscious. Are you well, Shouri?" 

I almost laughed. "I'm out of shape, I guess—the running-and-climbing part was harder on me than the maryoku drain. Can we rest for a few minutes?" 

"Yes, although we had best be gone before any of our former opponents wakes up." To my surprise, he sat down beside me, and in much the same position, with his arms wrapped around his knees. He even pushed his hood down, leaving the wind free to play with the strands of his hair that were too short to be woven into his braid. 

I licked my lips. It wasn't a question that I wanted to ask, but I felt I needed to know. Although _why_ I felt that way wasn't something I wanted to examine too closely. "Would you have killed them? If I hadn't been here?" 

Geneus shook his head gravely. "There would have been no need. Most likely, I would have fled and avoided the confrontation entirely, but using majutsu to enhance one's physical capabilities is a delicate art that you are still months away from learning, and I could not leave you behind." A sigh. "I kill when I have no other choice, but I have never enjoyed it. It always makes me feel as though I have failed at whatever I set out to do. A well-thought-out stratagem should be able to turn one's enemy's weaknesses against him without the need to resort to direct violence." 

Something inside me relaxed when he said that. I had never really believed he was an indiscriminate killer, but it made me feel happier to hear him _say_ it. 

"That one man . . . he was Mazoku, wasn't he?" I asked, changing the subject. 

"So it appears. I can only assume that he is one of the assassins, and the instigator of the entire altercation." 

I took a deep breath. "He wasn't the only stray Mazoku I've run into today. Well, sort of run into." 

Geneus' attention sharpened. "I felt nothing from that boy at the corrals." 

"Not him, but he did have an interesting request." I explained quickly about the missing Kathal. "I'm not exactly an expert, but it sounded more like fire majutsu than houjutsu to me." 

"It could be. If the bond formed without his being aware of it . . ." 

I frowned, remembering a certain drink of water I'd rather foolishly accepted from someone I'd thought at the time was Wolfram von Bielefelt, and what I'd almost done to Blood Pledge Castle—and to Yuuri—afterwards. "Yeah, that can be . . . a problem. I take it you've never met a White Crow named Kathal." 

Geneus' headshake tugged a few extra inches of braid out from under his hooded cloak. "However, I am not acquainted with all the modern members of the order, especially those who decided not to espouse Alazon's cause. If Kathal is alive, we may find news of him at Welford when we pass through. I must admit that news of his existence has made me . . . somewhat curious. And if he still does not know what he is, he should be told. As terrible a thing as exile is, ignorance of one's nature is worse." 

_You would know,_ I thought, and reached out to rest my gloved hand on top of his. His answering smile was surprisingly sweet, and I licked my lips, fighting the urge to kiss him. _And then what?_ I asked myself severely. _Have sex with him on an open rooftop in the middle of winter? Do you_ want _Little Shouri to turn into an icicle and fall off?_

"I've been wondering," I said. 

Geneus raised his eyebrows. 

"With the stairs gone, how are we going to get down?" 

"If I recall correctly which building this is, there is a side entrance with an overhang to shield it from inclement weather. We should be able to lower ourselves from the roof to the overhang, and from there to the ground. Granted, we will have to drop the last two feet or so, but that is hardly enough distance to constitute a danger." 

And we did. I went first, feeling a bit ridiculous as I dangled from the edge of the roof and felt for that overhang—barely twenty centimeters wide—with my toes. Then I had to carefully shift my weight around so that I could get a grip on the edge of this new surface and dangle from it to reduce the distance to the ground before I dropped. My feet hurt once I'd hit street level, but I was pleased that my gloved hands hadn't slipped once. 

Then Geneus followed me down, and made it look easy, damn it. The man wasn't just graceful; he knew how to use his body. And I was willing to bet that if I hadn't been along, he would just have leapfrogged from roof to roof until he found a better path down. I sighed, feeling like an out-of-shape, useless slug. 

I'd been half-expecting someone to be waiting for us at the inn when we got there, but to my relief, the crowded lobby contained not a single soldier. I didn't relax until we were back in the room and the door was shut behind us, though. 

"Welcome back. I was starting to think something'd eaten you." 

"Sorry," I said. "We ran into some people who really wanted to talk to us." 

"Oh?" Josak snapped his feathery fan shut, then opened it again. 

"A squad of soldiers," Geneus said. "Including two houjutsu sorcerers of moderate ability . . . and a Mazoku who wielded the earth element." 

Josak blinked. "In the same squad as two houjutsu users?" 

"We figure he was undercover," I said, dropping into a seated position on the edge of the bed. My legs really did hurt . . . or at least, they did until Geneus sat down beside me and began channeling healing into me. "For quite a long time, maybe. We couldn't exactly stop to ask them questions, but the other guys seemed surprised when he let them see what he was." 

"And strong enough to use his powers outside Shin Makoku," Josak said. "More assassins?" 

"So it appears," Geneus replied. 

"Great. I don't suppose either of you remembers what he looked like?" 

"Strongly built, but not overly tall," Geneus said. "His hair was dark brown, but it had the lustreless look of something that had been dyed too often, and for too long a period. His face I did not see, or not clearly, but I believe he had a beard." 

"If I could identify him just from that, I'd be a genius," Josak said. 

"Quite. I admit that I somewhat regret that you were not present at the confrontation, as you are more acquainted with the modern members of the Ten Families than I." 

Josak fiddled with his fan again. "Well, if there's a connection, it's probably to von Voltaire or von Radford. They tend to turn out the strongest earth-wielders. Or it could be that he's just the half-breed kid of some random peasant. The government here always tries to round 'em up, along with their mothers, to keep 'em from contaminating the other peasants, but they sometimes miss the odd one." 

I'd almost forgotten that Josak himself had been born in Big Cimaron—and, presumably, had been "rounded up" at an early age. If not for Conrad's father, he'd probably be dead. 

"Having four half-breeds with measurable maryoku all alive at the same time beggars belief," Geneus said. "No, either this one came from Shin Makoku, or there is an entire pocket of renegade Mazoku in northern Cimaron. Which would be equally unbelievable if not for our missing sword." 

"You think they're . . . the original sword thieves?" I wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten there, but . . . 

"I think that nothing is certain . . . but the timing is implausible otherwise. Seisakoku closed itself off more than two thousand years ago, and while it may have sent out trading ships from time to time, the crews most likely would have disguised themselves while moving among non-Shinzoku, as Beryes did. By four hundred years ago, they would have been little more than a legend in the human kingdoms. However, sixteen hundred years represents less than four generations in one of the Ten Families. If the sword was stolen by outsiders, at least some of them must have been Mazoku." 

I'd done an automatic calculation in my head, and the result was . . . startling. "Wait a minute—I know Mazoku from this world live longer than humans, but I thought sixteen hundred years would have been more like five or six generations. If you age five times more slowly, that would make four hundred years the equivalent of eighty years for a human . . . not everyone lives that long, and there wouldn't be any overlap in the generations for information transmission. Although I never did manage to figure out how all that worked with you coming of age at sixteen." 

Josak blinked. "Oh, the five-times thing is just the rule of thumb we usually give humans to keep them from getting too confused." 

"To be exact, four centuries is an average lifespan for an individual with a modest amount of maryoku," Geneus said. "Those with greater powers tend to live longer—seven or even eight centuries is not unknown, especially for those with strong blood ties to the People of the Forest. The pattern by which we age is also not entirely parallel to that which humans follow: a Mazoku child will normally appear to be roughly three-quarters of the age of a human child born at the same time, until he or she reaches puberty, at which time the aging process gradually slows to less than five percent of the human rate—much less, for those with powerful maryoku. This condition is known as arrest, and there are a number of hereditary, physical, and psychological factors influencing the time at which it enters into full force—between the equivalent of twenty and twenty-five human years is average." 

I rubbed my forehead and did some more math. Five percent meant two hundred years to age a human decade-equivalent, and . . . "So at some point between . . . thirty and forty? . . . you pretty much stop aging. And that lasts for the rest of your lives?" 

"Not quite," Josak said. "Most Mazoku leave arrest about fifty years before the end of their lives and go back to aging at the three-quarter-human rate. So old Lord von Wincott—have you met him?—who looks like he's about seventy, has maybe another thirty years in him." 

"Sixteen is the youngest age at which a healthy Mazoku could enter arrest, barring occasional pathological cases among the People of the Forest, hence the timing of the coming-of-age ceremony," Geneus added. "At one time, another ceremony, called Autumn's Blessing, was held for those who had resumed aging, but I understand that has fallen out of fashion in modern Shin Makoku." 

A bit more math gave me twelve as the equivalent human age for a sixteen-year-old Mazoku. That was still young for a coming-of-age, but not _ridiculously_ young, not in a premodern society. 

"Shouri." 

I blinked at Geneus, wondering why he had spoken my name so firmly. 

"You phrase your questions as though you think this has nothing to do with you, but it is part of your genetic heritage as well. Now that you have come into your maryoku, you will live much longer than a human, even if you choose to spend the rest of your life on Earth." 

"I'm trying not to think about it," I admitted. "Especially since I'm not sure how my being of mixed blood affects things." 

Geneus gave me the tiniest of smiles. "There should be no difference between the normal lifespan of a part-Mazoku and that of a full Mazoku with a comparable amount of maryoku. Although you do tend to age more raggedly at the beginning, with different internal systems maturing at different rates. In your case, I would say that you are physically and mentally on a par with a human of your age, but your maryoku is coming along at a slower rate. You are two to five years from your arrest, and if you decided to take up permanent residence in Shin Makoku you would likely live for six or seven centuries." 

I stared down at my hands, trying to take it all in. If a normal, which was to say powerless, Mazoku on Earth lived to be about the same age as a human, then I might have, oh, twice that? Bob was definitely older than he looked—after he'd had a bit too much to drink at a reception one night, he'd talked at length about the Battle of the Somme, in World War I, in terms that made it clear that he'd been there—but I'd never realized what that meant for _me_ before. Or maybe I hadn't _wanted_ to realize, given that I already felt like a bit of a freak when I was surrounded by humans. And Yuuri . . . six or seven _hundred_ years . . . which wouldn't seem as long from Earth, given that time didn't seem to elapse at the same rate in both worlds, but still . . . 

"You okay, Shouri-sama?" 

"The knowledge needs time to find its proper level in him, that is all. Now, we should verify that we have enough harness for all four of our new mules, and begin to shift the trunks to the carriage . . ." 

The rest of the day went by surprisingly fast. I learned that a mule's harness had way too many parts, each with its own special name, that the much-too-heavy trunk that I had to help carry up from its nook under the stairs was mostly full of tent, that mutton pies were almost inedibly greasy, that bathing in a Western-style tub after four days of sponge baths really did leave the water looking dingy, that the Cimaronese preferred to scent their soap with some kind of green herb instead of lavender, and that washing long hair in a bathtub with bar soap was a pain in the ass. 

I'd managed to almost forget the circumstances I'd be sleeping under that night until I returned to the room for the last time and found Josak unrolling blankets on the floor and Geneus sitting on the bed, dressed only from the waist down, combing out his hair. Little Shouri came alert at the sight of that pale, sculpted body, tinted warm gold by the candlelight, and I swallowed. Well, maybe if I kept my back to him it would be okay, and besides, if I said anything now, they'd both know I was having . . . problems. And I didn't want to think about what kind of jokes that would inspire Josak to. 

I forced myself to go in there and sit down beside Geneus to take off my boots. _It's only one night,_ I told myself as I lined the footwear up right in front of the door, in the only free floorspace left. I took off my jacket, and then, with another swallow, my shirt. Neither Geneus nor Josak seemed to be paying much attention, thankfully. I was the only one with a problem here. 

That was what I kept telling myself as I got into bed. The mattress was just wide enough that I didn't actually have to touch Geneus, who had positioned himself facing the wall. _I am the only one who's thinking of this as being anything more than two friends sharing a bed,_ I told myself as Josak blew out the candle. _And even if I'm not able to sleep a wink, I'll manage._

The sound of my two companions' breathing was oddly soothing, though, and I did drift off some time around midnight. Geneus' seal over my wind sensitivity was still holding, because I didn't dream about anything except being late for an exam in a course I couldn't ever remember taking. 

Waking up, though . . . Waking up was warm and comfortable and confusing. I couldn't remember where I was, at first, just that the bed wasn't mine and the body wrapped around mine wasn't that of five-year-old Yuuri, the only other person I had ever slept with, since my . . . encounters . . . with my girlfriends had all taken place during the day. And I had the worst case of morning wood in history. 

Then I realized that the person who had his arms around me and his legs entangled with mine _was_ a "he", with a lean, firm body, and the memories started to come back. _Geneus must have rolled over during the night. I wouldn't have expected him to be a cuddler._ I sighed and tried gently to move an arm. If I could get as far as the bathroom we shared with the other three rooms along this hallway I might at least be able to calm Little Shouri down. 

"Blonde idiot," murmured a voice, breath puffing warmly against the nape of my neck. "Too early . . ." The hand attached to the arm I'd tried to move began tracing circles against my stomach, and a firm lump that had to be an erection bumped gently against my ass. 

I have to admit, it crossed my mind for a moment, as that hand continued to circle, a bit closer to my waistband with every repetition, that I could just stay there, unbutton my fly, and let him do whatever it was that he had in mind. An intellectual decision that I had to pretend to be something I knew I wasn't . . . just didn't weight very heavily in the balance compared to the touch of a man I liked and found attractive. No one on Earth would ever have to know about what happened here. Maybe I could even get it out of my system . . . No, I knew that was a lie. It's always easier to give in the second time. I didn't think I'd ever been so hard before, and there was that funny little warm tingle in my ass again, and I wanted . . . oh, hell, I wanted . . . 

But . . . the only person I could think of that Geneus might call a "blonde idiot", then proceed to try to molest while they were both half-asleep, was Shin'ou. I didn't want to be some kind of substitute for the sort-of-god who had nearly gotten Yuuri killed. And it wouldn't be fair to Geneus either. Waking up was probably going to be painful enough for him without discovering that he'd . . . with me . . . 

"Geneus, hey!" I said, and twisted around awkwardly to shake his shoulder. 

I felt him freeze, then pull back, arms withdrawing from around me, body no longer pressed against mine. 

"My apologies, Shouri," came the soft, level voice. "I thought you were—" 

"Shin'ou," I supplied. "It's okay. I know you didn't . . . mean anything." 

A pause. Then, "There is still an hour or so left before dawn. We should try to get some more sleep." 

"Are you okay?" But really, I was certain that he wasn't. Something in the way he had spoken, in the lengths of the tiny pauses between words . . . 

"I . . . I lost him again in an instant." A whisper. Barely more than a breath. "The mind's endless capacity for self-delusion . . . And then when I reach out to touch him, the illusion shatters." 

"I'm sorry," I said. 

"There is no need. This is my own foolishness. Nothing you could have done would have prevented . . ." A soft sigh. "I must come to terms with this myself. I have his friendship again. I should not need more. Even inside my own head, it has been a full human lifetime since his death. Perhaps ninety-five years of celibacy was too much of a strain for my self-control." There was enough humour in that last, wry sentence that I was sure he was going to be all right now. 

"You mean, as Geneus Stornway you never . . . not even once?" Okay, so sue me, I was curious, mostly because I didn't really believe it was possible. Especially for a man who would have known what he was missing. 

"Not even once," Geneus agreed readily. "The mere relief of physical tension does not require the assistance of another person, and there was no one there whom I cared for, and who could have cared for me in return, poor shattered half-thing that I was while I dwelt in that body." 

"Now, that I don't believe," I said it half-teasingly, but the response was solemn. 

"It is true enough . . . although I will grant that I never attempted to seek out a partner. Not in that life. No matter how much I ached for it, I knew I had very little to offer a companion, given the purpose that burned fiercely enough inside me to boil my blood. Its absence feels . . . so very odd, sometimes." 

I opened my mouth, but I don't know what I was going to say, because at that moment, a thrown pillow hit me on the shoulder. 

"Hey, you two, sleep or don't, but do it quietly," Josak said from the floor, voice slightly slurred. 

"Fine," I snapped, "but I'm not giving your pillow back." 

"Don't care . . . just wanna sleep . . ." The sentence ended in a distinct snore, and I winced. 

Josak snored the rest of the night, which fortunately wasn't very long, but by the end of it, I wanted to clip his nose shut with a clothespin. I don't know if Geneus slept or not, because the first thing I'd done was tuck Josak's pillow between us so that there wouldn't be any more . . . misunderstandings. And the second thing I'd done was find a handkerchief and stuff it down the front of my pants so that I could jerk off without leaving slimy evidence on the clothes I was going to be wearing for the next several days. 

It was time to stop lying to myself, I was forced to admit after my third attempt to picture Keiko while I touched myself blurred into the more recent memory of a lean male body with alabaster skin and an outrageously long mane of black silken hair. No amount of trying to fix my mind on girls was going to stop me from wanting Geneus. I had never, _ever_ been so deeply attracted to anyone before. No man. No woman. No one. There was something about him that made me ache to touch him, no matter how much I tried to hide it. Even from myself. 

Was this what falling for someone, _really_ falling for them, felt like? I'd played _hundreds_ of dating sims over the years, and not one of them had ever managed to convey the sensation properly. If I lost him, something inside me was going to break. 

But he didn't want me, he wanted a blonde phantom. He wanted the man who had tried to kill him. It made me so damned angry, even though it fit in perfectly with my plans for my own future. We'd be just friends. We'd never so much as kiss, and if we embraced to comfort each other, I would be careful that we never came into contact below the waist. I'd find a wife on Earth, someone lean and small-breasted with long, black hair who would be able to put up with a stranger's name slipping past my lips now and again in intimate moments. Willing camouflage. No one would ever have to know how I really felt, or for whom. 

It wasn't anything that other men hadn't been doing since time began. Why, then, did those thoughts leave me feeling so dirty? 

Somehow I managed to look normal at breakfast, which was an American-style piled-high plateful of fried eggs and sausage and toast, served in the inn's crowded common room. I was even able to hold a conversation with Geneus, asking questions about our route without even mentioning . . . more personal matters. Of course, the fact that we were sharing a table with a merchant, his clerk, and a man I understood to be some kind of courier helped there, too. 

It was that last man who interrupted us with, "You're out of your minds if you're takin' the Welford road up to Tirnia." 

Geneus, once more disguised as a violet-eyed, brown-haired human, gave him a bland look. "I have traveled that road in winter before, and not found it any worse than the other northern cross-border routes. Besides, m'lady is most anxious to get home." He nodded in the direction of Josak (who was clad in a dress that might have been reasonable travel-wear for a wealthy woman if it had been a bit less intensely pink), then spread some jam on a slice of toast and took a bite with almost ostentatious unconcern. 

"This time last year, I would've agreed with ya, but 's'different now." 

"How so?" 

"'Cause it's all _wrong_ , that's why!" The messenger waved his fork violently, almost impaling the merchant's hat. "I was s'posed to take a packet from m'lord up to Formenholt, 'bout two months gone, but half a day out from the border the land all went . . . shadowy. It was like someone cut through the world. This side, it was a nice day—sunny, bit of a breeze—but further on there were these clouds and the air was all still and it was storm-dark with no rain and . . . it just felt wrong. My horse wouldn' cross over into it. Had to go 'round by Vornhall in the end. Lost me near five days, and m'lord wasn' pleased, but what else could I do?" He cupped his hands in a pleading gesture. 

Geneus frowned, eyes narrowed, while the merchant's clerk muttered something about "superstitious idiots" and I wished I dared ask questions. There was something about the messenger's words that stirred my memory, but I couldn't get it whatever-it-was to come clear inside my head. Clouds, still air, darkness, like a thunderstorm without the storm . . . Yuuri sometimes called storms when he was having one of his Maoh-attacks, but those usually came complete with sheets of drenching rain that increased the amount of water on hand and thus gave him more supplies to use in working majutsu . . . 

I ate the rest of my food quickly, and Geneus did much the same. We both pushed our chairs back at almost the same moment. 

"M'lady, if you will wait here for a short time, we will go and prepare the carriage," Geneus said. 

"Oh, of course, of course," Josak said in falsetto. I still didn't understood why anyone took him seriously as a woman, unless it was just self-preservation: you didn't want to offend someone with biceps like those. 

I held my tongue until we'd left the common room well behind. The inn's stable yard wasn't exactly empty of people either, but we weren't crammed in so that it was impossible for everyone not to overhear us, either, and I dared to ask, "So what do you think of our . . . friend's . . . story?" 

"Merely that it reminds me uncomfortably of some things I saw during the war, albeit on a much smaller scale." 

I didn't need to ask _which_ war: as far as Geneus was concerned, there was only one, and it had taken place four thousand years ago. And the remark made my memory come clear, too: the air around Shin'ou's temple had been dark and still while the Forbidden Boxes had been leaking, and there had been some problems getting horses close to it, although apparently trained warhorses were made of sterner stuff than courier mounts—they hadn't been happy, but they'd gone. 

But the Originators were dead . . . or . . . _those_ Originators were dead . . . 

"There's . . . another one?" I said slowly. "Is that even possible?" 

"I do not know, and I hope it is not the case, but . . ." Geneus shrugged, unwilling to complete the sentence in the presence of others. I couldn't think of an ending I would have liked, anyway. 

We'd left the carriage at the back of the yard, and while Geneus went to get the mules, I began checking it over to make sure that everything we'd loaded onto it previously was still there. 

I didn't know that the problem would turn out to be not something missing, but something added. 

Josak's trunks and the boxes of provisions were still in place, and the lashings didn't seem to have been disturbed, so I opened the door to check inside . . . and found our little extra, coiled up asleep on one of the benches. 

I reached over and touched Damyen's shoulder, and his eyes blinked open. "Shouri? I'm sorry, I didn't have anywhere else to go." His voice was slurred, and as he raised his head, I saw that the entire left side of his face was purple with bruises, the eye swollen half-shut. 

I muttered a curse and extended my focus. There were more bruises under the boy's ragged clothing, and . . . "Your arm's broken." 

"I figured." Damyen smiled with the good side of his face. The expression reminded me oddly of one of Geneus'. 

I had no idea how to deal with a broken bone—it probably had to be set so that it would heal straight—but Geneus would be back in a couple of minutes, and I knew he would know what to do. In the meanwhile, I went to work on the worst of the bruises. 

"What happened?" I asked as I encouraged pooled blood to flow away and flooded the area with healing instead. 

The boy sighed, his pain already clearly less. "He went back to drinking after you left," he said. "Then he lost three sales in a row. He blamed me—he usually does, never mind that the real problem was that he was loaded with too much brandy to remember his sales pitch. He cornered me inside the stable he rents, beat me and threw me out. I usually sleep there, but I figured you wouldn't mind, and a carriage is better than sleeping in the streets, so . . ." 

"What is going on here?" With my focus extended toward Damyen, I hadn't been able to feel Geneus come up behind me, and he only made noise while walking if he wanted to. 

"He's been beaten halfway to a pulp," I said. "I couldn't just dump him out on the street. Speaking of which, I hope you know something about setting bones, because his arm's in three pieces." 

"I am surprised we haven't picked up every stray dog between here and Caloria, given your predilections." The lightly acidic reply was an act, though—I could tell from his expression. "Very well, get out of the way and I will see to his arm." 

I stepped to the side and planted myself with my back to the carriage. Geneus climbed inside and must have sat down opposite Damyen. Extending myself carefully, I sensed an act of majutsu that I didn't quite understand. It wasn't wind, and wasn't water . . . earth? _Makes sense. After all, bone is made of minerals._

"Be careful of it for the next several days or it _will_ break again," Geneus warned. "The edges of the fracture are knitted together, but it will take some time for the bone in those areas to regain its strength." 

"Thank you, sir," Damyen said. "I hope I haven't gotten Shouri in trouble." 

Geneus sighed. "Truth be told, I doubt I would have done much differently in his place. The person in charge of this mad expedition would not approve of you being turned out to fend for yourself in an injured state." Which was a very nice piece of prevarication. "You are Damyen, I believe?" 

"Yes, sir. I guess Shouri must have talked about me." 

"I had to, or he wouldn't have answered my questions about the White Crow," I said, just to remind them I was there. It was half true: Geneus would probably have talked to me anyway, but I would have felt uncomfortable asking him about Kathal without explaining why. 

"Then . . . my brother . . ." 

"Regrettably, I do not know him. However, some years ago, the White Crow split into two branches, and I am only familiar with the membership of one. If your brother is still alive, and with the other branch, you would be best advised to seek news of him at Welford, or at Oden's Head on the east coast." 

"You're headed for Welford, aren't you? Sir?" 

I licked my lips. "Before you get too eager about tagging along, you should know that there's quite a bit of danger associated with us. We've been attacked twice in the past week, and we don't know why, or by who. I hate to say this, but you'd probably be better off staying here." _If he can find another job where his boss isn't a violent drunk._

"Is that why the other man who's traveling with you is wearing dresses? As a disguise to keep the bad guys from spotting you?" There was a slight hesitation before Damyen added, "They had the kitchen door open last night, and I sat on the back steps for a bit to warm up. I saw the three of you a couple of times, when they were carrying food out to the common room. He doesn't really make a very good woman, does he?" 

I snorted. "Don't tell him that—you'll hurt his feelings. He's very fond of those dresses." 

"And if there's danger . . . that's okay. I'm not safe here, anyway. If I go back to Losfel, he'll probably just break my other arm, and no one's likely to be hiring at this time of year. At least with you I know I won't starve or freeze, and if you get in a fight . . . well, I'm pretty good at running away and hiding." 

Unexpectedly, Geneus chuckled. "And altogether too intelligent for your own good, I see. Very well, you may accompany us as far as Welford, if you wish. Once there, we can reassess the situation." 

I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew that taking along someone in front of whom we couldn't talk freely was going to be a nuisance, but it just wouldn't have sat right with me to leave Damyen behind here, either. 

The boy popped out the door and dropped to the ground without bothering with the step bolted to the side of the carriage, and I reflected that we were going to have to find better clothes for him if we wanted to look the part of escorts for a respectable merchant's wife. His coat might have started out green, but it was greenish grey now, sloppily patched, and his worn boots were adult-sized, with rags peeking through a hole in the toe of the left one. 

"Shouri, a word with you." Geneus didn't bother with the step either, although his exit from the conveyance was more graceful than Damyen's. 

I nodded. "Damyen, can you finish harnessing the mules?" 

"Sure." 

Geneus led me away from the carriage, ducking behind a weathered cart with a broken wheel that had likely been sitting in the innyard for years. 

"You don't trust him," I said, keeping my voice down. 

"At the moment, we cannot afford to trust anyone. As far as I can tell, the boy is simply that: a well-meaning and intelligent youth burdened with misfortune . . . and yet there are half a hundred ways in which he could be used against us, even if he meant no harm. However, if someone _is_ intent on using him so, leaving him behind might also be a risk." Geneus' mouth flattened itself into a thin line. "We will need to watch him." 

"I understand." Unfortunately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any theory of Mazoku lifespans has to account for a whole bunch of stuff: the coming-of-age thing, Ulrike, why Conrad ages as a Mazoku while Yuuri ages as a human and Jilta (the half-breed kid from Svelera) seems to fall somewhere in between, and the ages people appear to be during the various flashback episodes, among other things.
> 
> Conrad says at one point during the series that Mazoku age at one-fifth the rate of humans, but the episode in which the Demon Mirror sends Yuuri back to just before Luttenberg contradicts that: Wolfram looks like he's about sixteen in the present, so he should have looked (16 - (20/5) = ) about twelve in that flashback. Instead, his character design is unchanged. So either the flashback is broken (admittedly possible—early in the series, we see a scene involving Julia and Conrad _with his current uniform and hairstyle_ , rather than his old shaggy haircut and academy uniform, which is clearly wrong), or else the aging ratio isn't a simple 1:5.
> 
> Even if we assume the flashback is broken, having young Mazoku coming of age at (16/5 = ) 3.3 years of age is utterly ridiculous—the late developers wouldn't even be able to _talk_ at that age.
> 
> The other things are a stretch with the 1:5 aging rate, but not impossible: Halfbreeds _might_ age more slowly the closer they are to Shin Makoku and age like full Mazoku if they happen to have and use maryoku (necessary to explain Bob), Shin'ou _might_ stop his chief priestesses from aging, and the arithmetic in the Dan Hiri flashback episode just barely works (Conrad looks like he's about (6 x 5 = ) 30 in the first part, and maybe (12 x 5 = ) 60 in the second, so Dan Hiri would have fathered him when he was in his early twenties, been a youthful fifty-something in the first segment, and died in his early eighties, which is damned old to be still gallivanting around the countryside getting into sword fights). Still, it takes a lot of finagling and special cases. I like my theory better. ;)


	10. Chapter 8

"Now release it gently . . . yes, like that," Geneus said as the whirlwind between my hands died and the dead leaves fell back to the ground. 

"So, do I pass?" I asked. 

"It was not intended as a test." I rolled my eyes at that, because that was what he _always_ said, and I didn't believe it anymore. "Still, I am impressed that your control is so firm after only three days of practice. We will move on to the less material aspects of wind use tomorrow, I think." 

I wasn't about to tell him that I'd mastered water to Ulrike's satisfaction in a single afternoon. For one thing, it would have been a non-sequitur: wind really was harder. For another, Damyen might be listening, and any careless remark might be enough to tell him that the techniques I was learning were for majutsu rather than houjutsu. And for a third, Geneus' standards were higher than Ulrike's. He wasn't satisfied by my just being able to send currents of air where I wanted them. Instead, I'd been crossing my eyes over a series of much more delicate exercises. Pick up this leaf and not the one right beside it. Dissipate the smoke from our campfire without creating a noticeable wind. Lift a mule's forelock without touching the animal's skin, which resulted in a stamping, head-shaking mule when I got it wrong. 

It was worth it, though. The pressure for precision was improving my control over water, too. Soon I'd probably be able to pick up a glass of liquid and direct every single drop to an exact and distinct location anywhere within a mile's radius. 

Not only that, but since the fight by the warehouse, earth was starting to make itself known to me. If I extended my focus down below my feet, I could feel the rocks and the soil and the roots of the dormant vegetation they surrounded and supported . . . but Geneus had been right: earth was patient, and didn't force itself on me. It could wait until I was confident in my mastery of air. 

"I take it you two are done." We'd had to camp out last night, and Josak had surprised me by showing up for breakfast the next morning wearing trousers and a long coat not unlike mine, rather than skirts. _It's M'Lord Sage's turn to play wandering potentate,_ he'd said, _and yours to ride inside with him while I drive. Before you come down with a cold._

It didn't match up with the story we had so painstakingly worked out for ourselves, but the time when we would have to abandon that anyway was quickly coming nearer. According to Geneus, the roads beyond Welford hadn't been properly maintained since Belar came to the throne, never mind Lanzhil, and we would be best off getting rid of the carriage and continuing on muleback. I wasn't looking forward to that, even though I'd spent part of each of our days on the road straddling one of the mules as it plodded along in harness, trying to toughen myself up. But it would be easier regardless if Josak didn't have to explain how he'd come to walk into his inn room as a well-dressed woman and out as a slightly scruffy man. 

"The mules are ready," Damyen said, giving us all a grin. The kid had really blossomed in the four days we'd been on the road together, and I wasn't just saying that because he'd taken over the mules' care with an incredible level of conscientiousness. He smiled a lot when he was sure of food and shelter and not being beaten. Sometimes, he kind of reminded me of Yuuri, although he was a couple of orders of magnitude more cautious than I suspected my brother would ever be. 

It was cold inside the carriage, now that it had been empty for a while, and my breath steamed in the air the same way it had outside when I settled myself beside Geneus on the bench seat with its worn padding, and drew my half of the blanket we were sharing across my legs. It would warm a little in half an hour or so, since it wasn't that big a space, but I was still glad for the shared body heat . . . and there were enough layers of cloth between us that Little Shouri wasn't going berserk inside my pants. 

"What's Welford like?" I asked as Josak and Damyen got the mules—and, with a lurch, the carriage—moving again. 

"It is a small town, very old and now centered around a bridge rather than a ford. There is an old fort above it that has fallen into disrepair since the border moved further out. The major industry, as you have no doubt deduced—" Geneus nodded toward the window, and the winter-fallow fields visible through it. "—is agriculture, with the typical Cimaronese emphasis on root vegetables, but there is also a deposit of quality clay along the river that sees some use. It has no political importance whatsoever, but is of minor commercial and military significance due to the river crossing. For taxation purposes, it falls within the domain of the Baron of Bress." 

"Baroness of Bress at the moment, isn't it?" I asked. 

Geneus smiled. "Yes. You have an excellent memory." 

"You've been drilling me in this stuff ever since we left Spensport," I pointed out, "and there are only about a dozen nobles whose domains intersect our route." I'd started asking him questions, outside on the driver's bench that first day, because it was more constructive than complaining about the cold, but I'd kept at it because knowing where we were going and what was coming up next made me feel useful. If we got separated now, I might even be able to find my way to the next stop along our route, which was more than I could have done a week ago. 

Which led to the next question. "Do you mind if I practice my reading?" 

"Not at all." 

I was already reaching for the book that lay on the seat across from us, a battered volume of human fairy tales that we'd found mysteriously tucked in among the supplies in the carriage, and later discovered belonged to Damyen, although how he'd come by it he'd never told us. He'd loved it pretty thoroughly, because it always fell open to the same page in the middle. After several days of working with it, I no longer had to check the cheat-sheet Geneus had helped me create on board the ship for every letter, but I still couldn't read quickly. Or silently, since I had to speak each word out loud before I could translate it. 

So I worked my way haltingly through a story about a young man who had gone to the King of the Sandbears to get some help to save the family farm while the carriage jolted along. The road had to look like a washboard, which made me wonder what it was like on the far side of Welford. _Probably just a couple of ruts._

Geneus stared out the window, seeming lost in his own thoughts, although I was pretty sure he was actually watching the countryside, and on more than one level, at that. I was just a beginner, but I'd already learned that you could perceive a lot of things that would otherwise be hidden from you if you knew how to use wind majutsu—not just people's dreams, but other stuff, too. Like assessing the emotional condition of the mules, or . . . 

"Shouri? Can you smell that?" Geneus was frowning. 

I took a deep breath. "Smoke?" 

"Then it is not my imagination." A faint majutsu aura flickered around him momentarily. "Judging from the direction of the wind, it must be coming from up ahead." 

"From Welford?" 

"I cannot be certain. Some farmer may just have let a field-burn get out of hand." 

"But we need to plan for the worst," I said. "Which would be . . . the town being in the middle of burning down?" 

"Which would be a battle going on in the middle of the town, with the fire being an incidental side effect, most likely due to stray houjutsu," Geneus corrected me grimly. "If that is the case, our best option is to circle away from the settlement and try to pick up the river road to take us to the next crossing. We will lose three days, but it cannot be helped. Our only other option would be using majutsu to intervene in whatever is going on." 

_Hell._ Using majutsu to damp the fires and stop any fighting that might be going on would probably save lots of lives, and I knew Yuuri wouldn't have hesitated, but it also went directly against our reasons for being here, and as a bonus, could easily lead to Damyen finding out we were mazoku. If Geneus was right, I might have to decide whether our secrecy, and my brother's safety, was worth more than the lives of a town full of strangers . . . No matter which option I chose, I might well end up hating myself. 

"Let's hope it really is someone's field," I said. 

We rode the next half-hour in grim silence, with the smell of smoke getting thicker. It was getting darker, too, and not because of sunset. Whatever was burning was putting out a _lot_ of smoke. I tried to reassure myself with the thought that dry wood, like the wood used to build houses, was supposed to burn cleanly and not release big grey clouds like this, but really, I didn't know enough about it to be sure. 

Josak stopped the carriage on the hill above Welford, and Geneus and I got out for a look. 

It wasn't the entire town that was burning, just the half on the far side of the river, but that was bad enough. And there was some kind of confrontation going on in the middle of the bridge, but that could be sorted out later. If the fire got much closer to the river, it was going to be a moot point, anyway, because the clot of people trying desperately to get across were going to die. 

"Sorry," I said to Geneus and Josak, "but I'm not sure I could live with myself afterwards if I didn't do this." And I extended my power, reaching for the river and lifting water high above the town so that it would break up as much as possible on the way down. 

After two loads, I was panting and sweating, and there were no more tell-tale flickers of orange among the distant buildings. I leaned back against the side of the carriage and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. Damyen was staring at me, wide-eyed, but he didn't say anything. 

"The fighting on the bridge has stopped," Geneus reported quietly. "The participants appear to be . . . understandably confused. They are not aware of our presence." 

"Question is, who are they?" Josak asked. 

"On the side nearest us, men wearing the uniform of the Cimaronese army. On the far side, there is no such uniformity, but several of them are houjutsu users . . . and at least one is a Mazoku, a fire-wielder of some strength." 

"More assassins," I muttered. "Great. And I just saved their half of the town." 

"Maybe not," Josak said. "Adalbert von Grantz is a fire-wielder, and we know he's been knocking around Big Cimaron. Although it feels kind of weird to _hope_ that we're going to run into him." 

"And the houjutsu sorcerers likely represent the remnant of the White Crow—indeed, I believe I recognize the aura surrounding one of them, although I did not expect to see him here." 

"One of Alazon's?" I asked, and got an answering nod. "In that case, could the Mazoku be Kathal?" 

"My brother isn't a Mazoku!" 

_Oh, shit._ At some point, I'd forgotten about Damyen—well, okay, it was more that I'd forgot what he didn't know, but— 

"How could you say that he's one of those . . . those filthy cannibal—" 

I rubbed my forehead and said something in Spanish that would have gotten me a ten-minute rapid-fire lecture from my mother if she'd been present and had any idea what it meant. We didn't have time for this, but at the same time it wouldn't have been right _not_ to deal with it. 

"Damyen, have you ever actually met a Mazoku?" 

"Of course not!" came the fierce reply. 

"Actually, you have," I said. "Three of us, in fact." 

The boy froze, eyes wide. "You mean you're—" 

"Yep. We don't eat people, though. Too stringy." 

" _Josak,_ " I said warningly. 

"Okay, okay. It's just that I haven't heard that rumour since I was younger than Damyen here. It made me . . . kinda nostalgic." 

"Sorry about that," I said, turning back to Damyen. "Yes, we're all Mazoku. And no, we don't eat people, human or otherwise. What you told me about your brother's problems sounded a lot more like runaway fire majutsu than anything to do with houjutsu, so we figure he's probably one of us. I know that's a lot to swallow at one sitting, but we need to get down there before anyone gets killed, so we don't have a lot of time. Anyway, if it is Kathal, we'll tell him that you're here, and you and he can sort things out between you. In the meanwhile, you should hide." 

"Hide?" 

"We're about to go get ourselves tangled up in what looks like a pretty nasty mess," I said, pointing at the bridge. "If you stay with us, you'll be in danger—real danger. There should be somewhere around here that you can go to ground. One of us will come back up here, probably tomorrow, to check on you . . . or you can just go your own way if that makes you more comfortable. We won't try to find you if you don't show, unless it looks like there's something wrong." 

"Take this," Geneus added, tossing Damyen a small pouch that made a clinking noise as he caught it. "It may be enough to buy you a bed and a meal, if you can find anyone willing to sell." 

The boy frowned for a moment, clearly thinking, then nodded. "Okay. I, um, I might be here tomorrow. Or I might not." 

"That's fine," I said. "Just stay safe, okay?" 

"Yeah. I, uh . . . Good luck." 

"Thanks." 

We all waited in silence while he scampered off, scrambling down the hillside to the edge of the town, then disappearing along a cross-street. 

"You sure that was a good idea, Shouri- _sama_?" 

I shrugged. "No, but you didn't exactly seem to have any better ones, Josak- _kun_." 

"Young Damyen may spend an uncomfortable night, but he will be well enough other than that," Geneus said. "He has a quick mind, and some knowledge of how to survive in an urban environment." 

"Do you think he'll be back?" I asked. 

"I would be surprised if he did not return here. His best opportunity for obtaining information about his brother still lies with us." 

"So what do we do now?" Josak asked. 

I took a deep breath. "Does anyone remember what we did with that uniform we borrowed from Conrad? I've got an idea." _Sort of._

It was simple, really: if there were Cimaronese soldiers involved in the mess on the bridge, they'd probably be willing to at least explain things to a man who appeared to be one of their own officers, even if I couldn't pull off the imposture well enough to order them away from the area. I changed as quickly as I could and pulled myself up on the driver's seat beside Josak, who chivvied the mules into motion so that we could begin an awkward trip down to the river over the icy streets, with the animals picking their way carefully along to avoid falling. 

There were somewhere between fifty and a hundred soldiers crowded into the last couple of blocks on the south side of the bridge, along with a couple of mule-drawn carts with canvas covers that concealed what they might contain. Several men armed with swords and spears stared up at me in surprise as the carriage rolled to a stop. 

I jumped down, dodged around the mules, and went straight up to the nearest soldier. "Where's your commanding officer?" I snapped the question right in his face—if this was going to work, I needed, as much as possible, to keep people from asking me questions, and the best way I'd been able to think of to do that was to play the part of a total hard-ass. 

"Sir! Captain Flood is assessing the situation by the bridge, sir!" 

"Well, then, move aside, man!" 

The hapless soldier looked like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. "Sir! I can't do that, sir! My orders are to let no one pass, sir!" 

"Then get whoever gave you those orders down here! Now!" My throat was starting to hurt from all the shouting I was doing, but I didn't dare let anyone know that. 

"I gave him those orders, Colonel." The man who pushed past the mule cart had salt-and-pepper hair and a full beard that spread over the chest of his dark-brown-and-mustard-gold uniform. "And if I may say, sir, I don't recognize you." 

"That," I snapped, "isn't my problem. Or do you think you know every officer in the army?" 

The mutter of "noble brat with a bee up his arse" wasn't quite so soft that I could pretend not to have heard it, unfortunately, so I stiffened my spine and glared. 

"What did you say?!" 

"I said, 'If you would care to come this way, Colonel, I will escort you to Captain Flood.' Sir." 

The man I was pretending to be was a hard-ass, but also in a hurry, I decided, and so I could afford to let the lie slide. "Then move! We're wasting time here." 

"Yes, sir." Although judging from the look that the sergeant, or whatever he was, gave me, he wasn't entirely convinced that I was what I appeared to be. Since part of me had expected to get found out the moment the first word left my mouth, I was willing to be satisfied with "not entirely convinced", though. 

I'm no expert on military deployment, but as the sergeant led me forward, I started to get something of a picture of what was going on. For instance, those men blocking the road along the riverbank suggested that they expected to be attacked from directions other than straight across the bridge. There were two concentric half-circles of soldiers at the foot of the bridge itself, while a third group blocked it. They appeared to be pointing spears at someone or something that I couldn't make out with them in the way. 

The sergeant led me down to the very edge of the river, just beyond the left edge of the outer semicircle of bridge guards, to the only other man here who was wearing an open-fronted white coat like the one that I'd borrowed from Conrad. He had medium-brown hair worn in what would have been called a brush-cut back on Earth, and the largest damned nose I'd ever seen. 

"Captain Errek Flood, sir, this is Colonel . . ." 

"Sholen Smith," I supplied, repeating the alias inside my head, and not for the first time. I needed to remember it—needed to remember to _answer_ to it. "Can you tell me what's going on here, captain? I'm headed north, and I need to get across that bridge." 

"Well, you may be waiting a while, then, sir, because we aren't the ones blocking it. It's those traitors from the White Crow." 

I raised my eyebrows. "I thought the White Crow had been destroyed when we cleaned out their stronghold in the south." 

"Well, it seems a few of them escaped and headed north, sir, and there were a few others already holed up here." 

"And you considered a few broken remnants worth starting . . . this?" 

Flood gave me an angry look. "No, sir, we were confiscating houseki in support of the war effort when the sorcerer assigned to us scryed out a large cache of them in one particular house. There was an argument, and things . . . escalated from there. We didn't know exactly who we'd found until several of them pulled weapons, and even then, we didn't expect that blonde man to—" He bit off the sentence and clamped his mouth shut. 

Deliberately, I narrowed my eyes. "A blonde man? Taller than I am, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and a cleft chin? Handsome, in a blocky sort of way? A swordsman?" 

Flood . . . well, he didn't do anything quite as obvious as gape with me, but it was clear I'd taken him by surprise. "How did you know? Are you here because of him? Sir," he added belatedly. 

I shrugged. "You might say so." _You might say that your undershorts are being eaten by marauding green giraffes, for all I care._ "His name is Adalbert von Grantz. Among other things, he was responsible for disrupting the most recent Great Games." 

"Von Grantz? But that's . . . !" 

"Yes, he's a Mazoku, and a member of one of their more important noble families. He went renegade about twenty years ago, for reasons best known to himself, and since then he's been causing trouble for every nation he involves himself with, Cimaron included. He's a disruptive element, which we do _not_ need in the present political situation, and he has insulted the dignity of our royal line. My orders are to remove him from this country—in pieces, if necessary." 

Flood looked at me. "You alone, sir?" 

I stared right back, looking him straight in the eye and forcing myself to look confident. "I have a team of two with me—another swordsman, and a gifted esoteric sorcerer. For various reasons I'm not going to get into right now, they're posing as civilians. I thought it best not to attempt to bring them through your lines with me before I'd had a chance to introduce myself. Kindly send someone for them—they're with the carriage I arrived here in, which is currently back behind your supply carts." 

"Yes, sir. _Private!_ " A very junior soldier, who looked like he was about Yuuri's age, was beckoned over and given instructions, then ran off again. 

"Is there some way I can get a better look at what's happening?" I jerked my chin in the direction of the bridge, just in case the captain wasn't entirely clear on what I was asking. 

An old-fashioned brass-bound spyglass straight out of a Hollywood pirate movie was placed in my hand. "The best vantage point is a little further along the bank, sir." 

"Thank you, Captain Flood." 

I strode along the riverbank, trying to keep my spine straight and my bearing military. If I slipped up now, I was in trouble. I'd used up a lot of maryoku dousing the fires, and I wasn't sure I had enough left to fight off fifty or more soldiers, even with an entire river of water no more than ten feet below me. 

The bridge's sidewalls were only a couple of feet high, and with the little telescope I was able to get a fairly good look at what passed for the front lines. Nearer to this side, a squad of soldiers, half of them kneeling, with spears poking out at two different levels to impale anyone dumb enough to rush them. 

Less than a foot from the points of the spears, a familiar blonde figure stood. I'd only met Adalbert von Grantz twice, briefly, and under pretty confused circumstances both times, but he wasn't the kind of person you forget easily. He had a red-headed woman with a large houseki-tipped wand, or maybe it was more of a small staff, to his left, and a man with messy grey hair and a build similar to Conrad's to his right, and he held a bare sword in his hands. 

Standing further to the left and a bit behind Adalbert's group was a White Crow fighter with a good-sized houseki in his left hand and a shortsword in his right. His facecloth was unfastened and dangling down over his chest, and the face it would have hidden was older, tired, and framed with a short salt-and-pepper beard. He had his left arm around the waist of a much younger man with short-cropped golden-blonde hair who wore a long tunic like the ones Geneus favoured. The embrace was clearly supportive rather than romantic, as the slender blonde's face was thin, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed and . . . well, he looked worse than Geneus had outside Shin'ou's temple, which I wouldn't have thought was possible. He bore no weapon, but a large crystalline stone that might have been another houseki dangled from a chain around his neck. 

Behind those two were a thin line of more of the White Crow types. These ones all had their facecloths in place. Mixed in with them were a couple of older civilians carrying houseki and a half-dozen variously-armed people wearing what I thought might be leather armour, and behind them, what had to be almost the entire population of the burnt half of the town—young and old, men and woman and children. People that, if our plan went off right, we would hopefully be able to save. 

"So what do you think, _Colonel_?" Josak gave me his familiar rakish smile as I lowered the spyglass. Behind him was Geneus, watching me silently, face shadowed by his hood, and behind him . . . Captain Flood, which was probably inevitable. 

"I think I don't like this very much, Lieutenant Gurrier," I said. "Von Grantz has far too much backup . . . but see for yourself." I handed him the spyglass. 

"Huh," Josak said after a moment spent staring through the tube. "Some of his own people, some White Crow types, and some civilians who probably don't know what the hell's going on and just want things to go back to normal." 

"One option would be to panic the civilians, then, and stampede them across the bridge," Geneus said in even tones. "Even if von Grantz is able to cut down unarmed folk in cold blood, the confusion will divide his men and act in our favour." Only the set of his mouth told me that he found his own suggestion disgusting. 

"I'd prefer to avoid civilian casualties," I said. _Even if we really wanted to get rid of Adalbert, I would never force you to do something like that. Alazon put you through enough ends-justify-the-means crap, and I'm not going to add to it._

"The next best option is to have Lieutenant Gurrier engage von Grantz while you and I clear the remainder of the bridge. Then we can pass him back through the lines to a position where he can be surrounded and taken down. We are unlikely to have enough of the element of surprise to be able to mount a successful remote attack, regardless of whether it is of a physical or a magical nature—the sorcerers accompanying him will block us, and anything powerful enough to break through their shielding risks damaging the bridge, which we have already agreed is best avoided." 

This suggestion was the serious one, and I pretended to consider it gravely. The real plan underlying it, the one we'd discussed while I'd been changing into the uniform, would involve us playing our part of Cimaronese strike team until we got past the soldiers, then depending on von Grantz and his people to shelter us and replace the necessary supplies that we had no choice but to leave with the carriage. A bit of a risk, but I couldn't see any better way—any other way that wasn't likely to result in someone ending up dead. 

"With all due respect, Colonel, I'm not going to order my men to part to let you through," Captain Flood said. "This von Grantz has already made it clear that he will take advantage of any opening, no matter how small." 

"We'll use the sidewalls," I said, although, really, that was the part of the plan I hated most. Okay, so the walls were solid stone and six inches wide and could be walked on, but I still had visions of falling off into the river. "Let's go," I added. _Because if I have to think about this too long, I'm going to freeze up._

Josak went first, then Geneus, who paused just long enough to whisper to me, "Move quickly and look ahead, not down," before leaping onto the narrow pathway that was the nearer wall and running lightly along it. I gritted my teeth and lifted one foot. Thankfully, I made it up on the first try, and forced myself to jog along nonchalantly as though I were on a paved road. Somehow, I managed not to slip. 

Josak timed his leap carefully, slamming into the woman beside Adalbert and pushing her back against the group of White Crow fighters standing behind her, striking for his supposed target in the same motion. The blonde man's sword met his with a metallic chime. Geneus jumped down into the narrow gap between the two opposed forces, slipping neatly into place so that not even a fold of his hooded cloak was caught on the spearpoints. Then it was my turn to slip down into a space beside the wall. Again, I somehow managed it without screwing up, but I really envied Geneus and Josak their . . . physical confidence. 

Geneus raised his hand, and I felt wind majutsu subtly engaging around us, creating an illusion of something Captain Flood and his men would hopefully find plausible, since we didn't dare let them see what was going to happen next. The red-headed woman must have sensed something too, because her eyes widened, then narrowed, as she regained her balance. 

Geneus pushed back his hood, revealing hair that was once more black and a face that again bore the marks that Alazon had placed there, and a wave of shock moved through the White Crow members. Several of them spoke his name, almost like a prayer, and Adalbert von Grantz froze in mid-lunge. 

"The Great Sage . . . ? But that other one . . . that boy is . . ." 

"There will be time for questions later," Geneus said. "I cannot support the illusion that cloaks us indefinitely. We need you to withdraw your men from the bridge, all but the handful necessary for a convincing-looking fight against the three of us. Once they are clear, I will alter the illusion to suggest their deaths. Heike, I need you to destroy the downstream sidewall, if you have the means." 

The White Crow with the salt-and-pepper beard inclined his head. "I believe I can attempt one more disruption, my lord." 

The slender blonde he was supporting coughed and said, "He can't be—" 

"As Lord Geneus said, there will be time for questions later," Heike said reprovingly. Now that we were closer, I could see that the blonde was wearing a cloak-brooch stamped with the White Crow crest, so logically he also had to be a member of the society. My eyes narrowed. A young, blonde White Crow . . . this couldn't possibly be . . . 

"And while you're performing this elaborate version of the shells-and-pea game, how are the people involved in this 'convincing fight' of yours supposed to get away safely?" Adalbert asked, interrupting my train of thought. 

"We go into the river," I said. "I think I still have enough maryoku left to keep us dry." 

The ex-noble turned his attention to me. "You were the one who doused the fires, weren't you?" A hesitation, then, "I know I've met you before, but I can't seem to . . ." 

I sighed. "Imagine me with short black hair and very foreign clothing—and quit wasting time. You know you can't win here. The army's probably already bringing in reinforcements. You don't have enough people to fight a pitched battle." 

Blue eyes blinked, then widened. "You're the Maoh's—" Adalbert stopped. "No, you're right, we're wasting time. If we're going into the river, you'd _better_ be able to keep us dry." He glanced pointedly at the water, cold and turbulent and skinned over with ice at the edges. Five minutes in that without protection and we'd all be severely hypothermic. 

"I'll be betting my own life on it," I said. "And the life of my closest friend," I added, glancing at Geneus, and seeing surprise denoted in a tiny movement of eyes and mouth. Surprise . . . and . . . pleasure? _I'm reading too much into this. Guess I'm starting to have delusions of being telepathic._

Adalbert set his chin and gave us a nod. "All right. We'll take our chances with your plan—this stalemate we've got going on couldn't last much longer anyway. Keenan! Get up here! The rest of you, back off a bit and be ready to run on my signal." 

Keenan was the grey-haired man I'd seen from the shore, and now that I knew his name, I vaguely remembered Murata mentioning him as having been . . . dishonourably discharged . . . from the guard at Blood Pledge Castle. He smirked at me and drew his sword, and the fight was on. 

It took me only seconds to discover that Keenan was a better swordsman than I was even when supported by an enchanted weapon—if he'd been fighting me seriously, I would have been dead in fairly short order. I moved carefully left so that I could put my back to the side-wall and reduce the risk that I was going to be driven back onto the spears of the Cimaronese bridge-blockers. A few feet away, Adalbert and Josak were going at it, and now that I'd had a bit of sword practice myself, I could recognize their blows as being just about as showy as they could possibly be while still remaining realistic. Although I couldn't afford to watch them much, or for very long, if I wanted to keep my head on my shoulders. 

Then Geneus' voice spoke a single word with absolute clarity, even though it wasn't very loud: " _Now._ " And everything went crazy in a subtle kind of way. 

I'd been expecting explosions, I guess. Action-movie fireworks, or the type of stuff I'd gotten caught up in a few times before in Shin Makoku. And people panicking and running around like headless chickens. Instead, the only sounds were Adalbert shouting, running feet all moving in the _same_ direction (away from us), and a soft sighing sound as part of the bridge's guardwall collapsed. Geneus did throw some fire around, but only enough to leave scorched spots on the stone—I think there must have been explosions in the illusion he was throwing up, the one I couldn't actually see. Adalbert's people and most of the White Crows melted away among the charred and blackened buildings on the far side of the river, and Adalbert himself ran for the edge of the bridge as soon as the last of them had disappeared. Josak spun to follow him, Heike and his companion went down and over, and then Geneus' arm was around me and we were both going over into the river together. 

Holding the awareness of seven people in my mind and calling the river water up to form bubbles around us while I was falling wasn't the easiest thing I had ever done. The concentration required was such that I wasn't entirely sure just when we did hit the water, although I did notice when we landed in the ooze the coated the riverbed, among broken ceramic jars and bits of half-buried, decaying wood. The smell was unbelievable, and fish swam past, goggling at us. 

Geneus gestured downward, freezing a narrow band of ooze solid. "Keep moving—we have to be clear of this while he still has control. Shouri, close your eyes if it aids your concentration. I will guide you." 

"I'm okay for now," I said, steadying myself against his shoulder. "But if I need to, I'll do it. I trust you." Simple truth. 

We ran along the river bottom—not as fast as we possibly could, since there was no way I could keep the bubbles moving at anything like Geneus' maximum speed, but quickly enough. My attention was focused on the water, and on the air inside the bubbles, so that I would know when to pull in fresh oxygen, and I stumbled now and again as we dodged around rocks and what I think must have been a sunken barge. Geneus never let me fall. 

I wasn't aware of leaving the water, either. By that time, I think I was no more than semiconscious, staggering and nearly falling as we hit a staircase. I only began to climb because I was being half-pulled, half-lifted upwards. 

Shaking . . . When had someone started shaking me? "Shouri! Shouri, you need to let the bubbles go now." Familiar voice. Trustworthy voice. 

I let the mental construct I was using to hold the bubbles evaporate from my mind. And then I let my consciousness evaporate as well, because it just felt like it would be easier that way.


	11. Interlude:  All Must Go Into Earth

She is not certain how long she has been hanging there. Weeks? Months? Certainly not mere days. The scabs the shackles have left on her wrists are itching, and the blood that trickled down her arms when she was first brought here is dry. Her skin crawls with filth, and she has soiled herself . . . she does not know how often. Her royal pride hangs in tatters along with her dress. And yet, there is one thing of absolute importance that she has not forgotten. 

_My son is not here. Whatever else may have happened, I managed to keep these animals away from Saralegui._

Her eyes burn as light flares in the darkness. Her captor is coming, as he does twice daily. It is the only time she is able to see anything. There are no windows here, deep beneath the stone, no torches, and the manacles bind her houryoku and prevent her from conjuring light. 

_Weeks, if not a month or more,_ she decides, seeing the residue of snow in the creases of his clothes as she squints at the lantern. It must be winter outside, or nearly so. 

She has seen no one else since she woke to find herself here. His even-toned grey hair and black eyes, which mark him as a Mazoku, are beginning to look almost normal to her, although she will likely never grow accustomed to the mustache that crawls across his upper lip like an overly exuberant caterpillar. He is solidly muscular, and moves with the ease of a well-trained fighter. Although she knows that the grey hair is no sign of aging, and his face is youthful and unlined, she suspects him of being what passes for middle-aged among his people. His manner is that of a man accustomed to respect, although his clothes are nondescript. 

He seems ordinary enough, and yet there is a darkness about him that she does not understand, a subtle wrongness that her depleted houryoku brushed up against as he fastened the shackles about her wrists. Without the freedom of her powers, she cannot probe him to seek further information. But she is a queen, and she will not let herself fear. 

He sets the lamp down well out of her reach, and uncovers the bowl he carries in his other hand. The soup is still warm enough to steam in the cool air of the stone-walled room. As usual, he bears no weapon and no key, although she can see the marks of a scabbard against the lower part of his trouser leg. He always removes his sword before darkening her door, and anything else that might be of use to her should she somehow manage to slip a hand loose from her shackles. 

"It's corn chowder today," he says as he raises the wooden bowl to her lips. "I hope that is to your liking, your Majesty." His tone is not so much mocking as harsh. Hateful. She does not know why. He seldom answers her questions, and never the personal ones. He has not even told her his name. 

She parts her lips to allow the thick, warm liquid into her mouth, knowing that she must keep her strength up, and therefore she must eat. At least the food is not vile. She suspects it is the same as he eats himself. 

"You will no doubt be interested to know that King Saralegui has finally left Shin Makoku to return to Small Cimaron," he says as she swallows. "Apparently that overly-protective retainer of his is satisfied that he is now well enough to travel." 

She offers him no reaction, not even a lessening of her tension at the news that her brother is still alive and well and guarding her son. If he will tell her nothing that does not suit his purposes, she will tell him nothing, either. 

"The Maoh's brother has resurfaced too," he says, tilting the bowl so that she can take another mouthful. "In the Cimaronese city of Spensport. He appears to have your discarded doll in tow. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Shouri Shibuya has always struck me as rather passive." 

_Then you are a fool._ She remembers the elder Shibuya brother well, and knows that his quiet manner conceals a sharp intelligence—one that she must admit might be greater than her own, although his compassion softens him and leaves chinks in his armour that a sufficiently ruthless person can exploit. He is wary, and keeps his own counsel, but can act decisively at need. And if Geneus is with him, if he is somehow still alive . . . Only by the thread of his peculiar obsession was she able to keep the man whose mind she had found within the crystal harnessed to her service. Shouri is sharp, but even the shattered remnant of the Great Sage is terrifying, his calculations able to give the impression that he reads minds and can see into the future. 

The queen of Seisakoku smiles quietly, and accepts another mouthful of soup. 

_They will find you and destroy you._ She does not expect them to rescue her—even Shouri cannot be that soft—but that is acceptable. 

Revenge will be enough.


	12. Chapter 9

I woke to the flickering light of a handful of candles, lying on a stone floor, with two coats—one grey, and one the white outer layer of my borrowed Cimaronese uniform—spread on top of me and my head cushioned by what could only have been Geneus' folded cloak. Just breathing in the scent of him that clung to it made Little Shouri stir, and I winced and thought about carnivorous worms for a bit. _Man, I really have it bad. When did I even notice how he smells?_ There were shadowy shapes moving around the room, but without my glasses I couldn't even tell whether they were people or not. 

Then one of them crouched down beside me, and my maryoku recognized Geneus in the moment before he leaned close enough for his face to come into focus. His mouth curved in a half-smile as he unfolded my glasses and set them in place on my nose. 

"We are going to have to find a good healer to do something about those eyes of yours. How do you feel?" 

"Stiff," I said. _And kind of embarrassed that I blew so much maryoku that I collapsed._ "Otherwise, I think I'm okay. Sorry if I worried you." And I was pretty sure that I had, although I couldn't have picked out the element of his expression that told me so. 

"There is always a risk that goes with draining one's maryoku too deeply. During the war, I saw those who exhausted themselves to the point that they never woke." 

"I'm sorry," I repeated, closing one of my hands over his and squeezing it just hard enough that he would hopefully feel it through both our gloves. "Can you help me up?" 

I looked around the room as I slipped my boots back over my stocking feet. Actually, it was more a cave than a proper room—I thought someone had used a chisel on the walls, here and there, but there was no sign of mortar. At least it wasn't too cold. Candles stuck up from random surfaces, their light barely reaching into the corners, but they provided enough illumination for me to identify Adalbert von Grantz, leaning against a wall and watching me. 

"Where are we?" I asked. 

"A cavern just outside Welford," Geneus replied. "It connects to the cellars of the old fort, but I doubt anyone has been down here since they ceased using it for storage." 

"So we're safe?" 

"For the time being. I would not choose to remain here more than a day or two." 

"And . . . did everyone get away?" 

"As far as we can tell," Adalbert said. "Thanks to the two of you. I'm surprised you could throw around so much majutsu in human territory—I can barely manage a nightlight here. Maybe you're more like your brother than I thought." 

"I don't think anyone's quite like Yuuri," I said, reflecting that I couldn't have given Adalbert a very good impression of me the last time we'd met. 

Von Grantz actually seemed to find that funny. "You're probably right. Anyway," he added more seriously, "you still owe me an explanation. Gurrier refused to talk—told me to apply to 'Shouri-sama or M'Lord Sage', and your friend's been deflecting my questions in between bits of mother-henning over you. Does this have anything to do with that sword-stealing business?" 

"Yeah." How much of the truth was it really a good idea for me to tell a renegade Mazoku? But Yuuri . . . my brother trusted this man. I glanced at Geneus, who unhelpfully twitched his shoulders in a slight shrug. Then again, if he knew anything about Adalbert, it was only by reputation. "The White Crow types I saw with you on the bridge didn't tell you what was going on there?" 

"None of them knew very much. Apparently, this Alazon person only really confided in your friend." 

"She would not, I think, have told me as much as she did if she had expected me to survive after we parted ways," Geneus said. He gave Adalbert a long, thoughtful look, and must have seen something that made him decide the man was somewhat trustworthy, because he continued, "The true beginning of the story may be found some four centuries ago in Seisakoku . . ." 

Geneus' version of what had happened was concise and omitted anything of significance about his own history, focusing instead on Alazon and the holy sword. Adalbert remained silent, arms folded across his chest, until the brief recital was complete. 

"So that explains why you're here," the blonde man said when it became clear that Geneus had nothing more to add. "What it _doesn't_ explain is why you look so damned much like that portrait of the Great Sage they display at Blood Pledge Castle. Put you in slightly different clothes and cover up those tattoos, and you could sit for it." 

Geneus' mobile mouth twisted down in a frown. "They are more in the nature of birthmarks than tattoos—the marks of a Shinzoku temple slave, placed on me by Alazon when she created a body to house my mind. My appearance was of her choosing, not my own, and I am still not certain whether it was intended as an incentive or a subtle cruelty." 

"Don't try to make me believe you're some kind of homunculus, because I've heard what your White Crow friends have to say about homunculi. They're mindless, they sure as hell don't have any maryoku, and the houjutsu holding them together needs constant renewal to keep them from evaporating." 

"Hence Alazon's belief that I could not survive without her assistance," Geneus said. "Shouri was able to remake her creation into something more solid and permanent, for which I am more grateful than I will ever be able to express." 

Adalbert scowled. "That doesn't really answer my question. Who are _you_ , why do the White Crow people think you're the second coming of their founder, and how did Alazon learn what the Great Sage looked like in so much detail that she was able to give you that hateful face?" 

Geneus' shoulders tensed subtly under his long tunic, and I could tell he was steeling himself for what he was about to say. "Shortly before his death, Geneus Stornway, the founder of the White Crow, recorded his memories into a houseki. Alazon found that crystal—how, I do not know, for it should have been well-hidden—and used it in the creation of a homunculus. I presume she scanned my memory for the appearance I accepted as my own and recreated it, although I have no idea whether or not she realized at the time that Geneus Stornway had been an incarnation of the Great Sage of Shin Makoku. And so, in a sense, I am precisely what I appear to be, although I do not know what grudge you hold against me. To my knowledge, we have never met before today." 

"You're just an unpleasant reminder of everything that bastard Shin'ou stole from me, that's all," came the gruff growl. 

"Adalbert's fiancée died because Shin'ou wanted her soul for Yuuri," I explained in response to Geneus' inquiringly raised eyebrow. 

"Then I regret your loss, and its necessity." 

" _Necessity?_ How can it possibly have been _necessary_ for the most powerful healer in Shin Makoku to die of _magic exhaustion_? She was the warmest person in the world, and Shin'ou tortured her to death! Do you have any idea what degree of pain—" 

"In fact, I do." Geneus' spine was stiff, his hands clenched into fists. "In terms of pain, I would rate such a death as worse than the Blue Plague, or a quick head or throat wound, but better than an infected gut wound, being torn open in childbirth, or a dose of kessaria poison, and much, much better than being burned alive. I have suffered them all, and I remember." 

That seemed to take Adalbert aback. 

"Do you think," Geneus continued relentlessly, "that I do not understand how you feel? Or that Shin'ou does not? Indeed, I think you are most fortunate: you did not have to kill your lady with your own hands, or tear out her soul so that you could use it to bind the creature that you had both fought to the limits of your strength, only to discover that _it was not enough_ . . ." A shudder ran through him. "We had no desire to inflict such suffering on another, Adalbert von Grantz, but we were trying to save a world, and the only plan we could come up with was a mad, tentative, _fragile_ thing that required the use of a very particular kind of soul . . . and there was no way to create it but to cut a life short . . . We would not have chosen to do this to you. But if you blame Shin'ou for her death, then you must equally blame me, for the broad outlines of the plan were mine—he chose only the specifics." 

Adalbert stared at Geneus silently for a moment. Then he turned and left the room without a word, one hand wrapped white-knuckled around the hilt of his sword, an unreadable expression on his face. The moment he was gone, Geneus leaned back against a wall and closed his eyes. 

_Are you alright?_ It was such a damned inane question when I could see that he wasn't. And his pain was hurting me, too—I wanted so badly to protect him, but I couldn't change his past. He and I both had to go on from here. 

I went to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and then, because it was the only way I could think of to help, slid my arms carefully around him, as I might have done with Yuuri when he was younger. To my surprise, he not only accepted the embrace, but leaned into it, resting his chin on my shoulder. I could feel him trembling, now that he had relaxed the iron control that had let him speak those words to Adalbert. 

"I'm sorry," I said. 

"For what?" came the soft question. "None of this was of your making." 

"For . . . for not being able to go back four thousand years in time and stop the Originators from contaminating Shin'ou in the first place, I guess." I barely even knew what I was saying. 

The sound that escaped Geneus was midway between a sob and a laugh. "Oh, Shouri . . . sometimes you are so very like him." His arms slid around me in a reciprocal embrace, and for once, Little Shouri stayed put. "Thank you for reminding me that I am not alone anymore. That there is once more someone with whom I can set down my burdens, even if only for a moment." 

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. "I just wish there was more I could do." 

"Are you so intent on having me in your debt for the rest of my life?" Even though he was still shaking, the words sounded . . . almost playful. 

"Friends aren't supposed to keep track of that kind of thing." _Are they?_ It had been a long time since I'd been so close to anyone . . . _No, be honest, Shouri, there's_ never _been anyone that you wanted to be this close to._ Not even Yuuri, since there was one particular type of closeness that I wanted with Geneus but had no interest in sharing with my brother. "I just want you to be happy. More than anyone else I've ever met, you deserve a chance at that." 

"You have no idea what manner of vile things I have done." 

"Maybe not, but whatever they were, I don't think most of them were your idea. I don't think you have it in you to _want_ to be evil." 

"You might be somewhat less convinced of that if you had met me in my first incarnation on your world." His shivering, I noticed, had finally quieted. 

"Was he really that bad?" 

" _She_ was the ruler of a small and primitive nation of rather vicious cannibals. Thankfully, I only recall enough of that particular lifetime to occasionally colour my nightmares." 

"She doesn't sound like someone I'd want to remember either," I admitted. After a brief pause, I added, "We're going to have to find some way of getting those marks off your face. I don't like the thought of you being Alazon's property." 

"Less hers than that of the entire nation of Seisakoku . . . but overall, I quite agree. However, the only method I have been able to think of that might work will be neither painless nor possible for me to execute alone." 

I relaxed my arms and leaned back a bit so that I could look at him. "You know I'll help." 

"You will need to learn more about healing first." He sighed softly. "Tattoos are simple to erase—the pigments merely have to be forced to bleed back up through the skin, after which they can be wiped away with a rag—but in this case my body is _producing_ the pigment. The only way to erase the markings is to destroy the skin that bears them, and then perform a very selective healing to make normal skin cells expand to fill the space. Because these—" He touched the triangle below his left eye. "—extend into the eyelid, I run the risk of being blinded if we were to make an error." 

That _we_ . . . it just made me feel warm inside, although the other aspects of what he was saying weren't comforting. "Whatever you think I need to learn, I will." 

A nod. "I have no doubt of that. You absorb what I offer you more quickly than anyone else I have ever known." 

"I should have realized you'd had other students." Why did that hurt? Just a little pinprick inside me . . . 

"None at your level," came the soft reply. "You are the first who has wanted to learn everything my true self might have to teach. I have never known anyone so eager for knowledge and power, and yet, at the same time, so innocent and warm . . ." 

We were face-to-face, eyes on a level and only inches apart, and I ached with the need to kiss him. Instead, I forced myself to look down and away. 

"Where's Josak?" I asked. "We should try to figure out what we're doing next." 

A sigh, and Geneus stepped away from me, his arms falling to his sides. "Indeed. I sent him to find Damyen, but he should be back by now." 

Josak turned out to be more difficult to find than I expected, mostly because I hadn't thought he would go into spy mode. Actually, we didn't find him—he found us, materializing out of a shadowy corner and nearly giving me a heart attack in the process. 

"Whatever you said to Lord von Grantz must've been something else, 'cause he kind of freaked out. When I left him, he was beating up on an empty crate and cursing a blue streak." 

"Geneus . . . sort of apologized to him for Julia," I said. 

Josak pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. "I hope you know what you're doing, M'Lord Sage. He . . . has a volatile temper." 

"He can scarcely be worse than others I have known. Did our young stray choose to show himself, or must we defer that to tomorrow?" 

"'Fraid so. Not only could I not find him, but no one I asked had seen him, either. If his brother doesn't want him, I think I may have myself an apprentice." 

I snorted. "Just don't be too surprised if he doesn't think much of that cross-dressing thing of yours." 

"Oh, he'll probably change his mind when he sees how _useful_ it is." Josak winked, then added in a more serious tone, "By the way, that Heike fellow was looking for you, M'Lord Sage. He seems to be in charge around here—or at least, in charge of everyone who doesn't look to Lord von Grantz." 

Geneus nodded, clearly not surprised by this news. "Heike was the closest thing the White Crow had to a leader at the time Alazon revived me. Had he not declared me to be the natural head of the society, I doubt any of the others would have agreed to work with her." 

"Can we trust him, though?" 

"More than we can trust von Grantz. If nothing else, I know him well enough that he will not be able to lie to me successfully. Indeed, I doubt he will even make the attempt—he is forthright by inclination, and steadfast once he has given his loyalty." 

"To you?" 

"To anyone—but yes, if we are fortunate, he may still be inclined to support me." Geneus made a small gesture that Josak clearly interpreted as "lead on", because the half-breed spy started off back down the tunnel in the direction from which we had come. "Did you learn anything else of interest on your aboveground expedition?" 

"Well, I can tell you that the army did confiscate our baggage. Judging from what I overheard, the dresses are puzzling them no end." Josak's grin flashed in the dim light of the torches that had been thrust into cracks wherever the wall was inclined to cooperate. "They're also looking for the three of us, but the descriptions aren't very good—I got away from a bunch of them just by putting on a hat. Captain Flood's as confused as he is pissed off. Unless we have really crappy luck, we should get away clean." 

"I don't want to bet on luck," I said. "Especially since I'd trade it for a change of clothes, right about now. One guy in a soldier suit surrounded by a bunch of civilians—even if, like you say, we get away from here without anyone noticing us, that's going to attract attention later on." 

Josak shrugged. "There's gotta be twenty or more of those White Crow guys here. We just need to find one in your size, that's all." 

I wasn't so sure myself—given that the half of the town they appeared to have been living in was the one that had been fried, it was possible that no one here had any spare clothes, or spare anything else, for that matter. Like food or blankets . . . or horses. 

I'd been aware of a conversation taking place some distance away for a while now, but when we hit a T-junction and turned in the direction that had a big chalk arrow on the wall pointing to it, the words suddenly became loud enough for me to make out what was being said. And I didn't like it at all. 

"—can't be! Lord Geneus was _human_ , not one of those vile—" A coughing fit interrupted the comment. 

"I have no idea what wrinkle in his self-perception caused the homunculus to take that form, but he _is_ the founder of our order—in mind and heart, if not in body. I scanned a small portion of the houseki we retrieved myself, and there wasn't any doubt of whose memory I was immersed in. Suspend your judgement until you speak to him, Kathal, that's all I ask. Even in the unlikely event that we've somehow been deceived, he's an extraordinary person." 

I jerked my head up in surprise. _Kathal?_

A few feet further down the tunnel, Josak stopped and clapped his hands sharply. "'Scuse me? Can we come in?" 

"Certainly," came the immediate reply. 

I couldn't call what we passed through a _doorway_ , exactly—it was too irregular for that. A crevice, maybe, one blocked off with a motheaten blanket hanging from a couple of hooks. The cave on the other side was irregular too, but someone had covered the floor with packed dirt, then with some kind of rough matting made from woven reeds, to level it out. They'd also built a crude bookshelf out of what looked like packing crates, with more crates set out on the floor for use as chairs or tables. Currently, two were being used as seating, while another in between them bore a candle in a cracked pottery cup and a wooden tray decorated with two mugs and a couple of fruit pits. My stomach rumbled, and I wondered how long it had been since I last ate. It had been lunch, certainly, but I wasn't sure how long I'd been unconscious, so it might have been _yesterday's_ lunch. 

The man sitting nearest the door was Heike. He'd removed the remains of his headgear to reveal that his hair was dark brown, greying at the temples to the point where it almost matched his beard. His skin was surprisingly weathered for someone who wore a veil all the time, and he had crow's feet at the corners of his hazel eyes. The beard half-hid a scar that ran down the side of his neck just forward of the ear. There was a scar on his left hand, too, and the tip of his little finger was missing. He might have been in his mid-forties, but my bet was that he was at least fifty. 

The person sitting across from him was the blonde he'd been with on the bridge, and he couldn't have been more of a contrast. Although Damyen had said that his brother was around twenty, Kathal looked like he was about Yuuri's age . . . or he would have, if he hadn't also looked like a famine victim. His breathing sounded thick and raspy, and his chest was heaving as though he was having a hard time getting enough oxygen. Only his eyes, the same intense dark blue as Gwendal's, were alive, burning with intelligence and cold anger. 

The heavy pendant he wore was definitely a houseki, enclosed in a sort of wire cage. There were several others in the room, too: Heike had a couple, Kathal had at least one more, and there was a smallish one on or in the bookshelf somewhere. I rubbed my forehead, trying to chase away the not-quite-a-headache that the stones caused. I wasn't nearly as sensitive to houseki as a pure-bred Mazoku, but being around them was still uncomfortable. 

"What are you staring at?" Kathal rasped. The question ended in a coughing fit, and he got out a handkerchief and used it to cover his mouth. When he lifted it away, there were distinct red spots on it. 

"Tuberculosis?" I muttered, then immediately rejected the idea as ridiculous. Maybe that's what it would have been in one of those period dramas Yuuri watched, but surely magical healing could have taken care of a straightforward disease like that. No, this had to be something else—hopefully not something contagious. 

I cleared my throat. "I was just thinking that the impression Damyen gave me of you was different." 

" _Damyen?_ What have you done to my brother, Mazoku?" Kathal barked out the words, grabbing at the houseki around his neck and actually rising halfway to his feet before another coughing fit forced him back down onto his crate. 

"Easy," I said. "You don't need to make yourself any sicker. Your brother's fine—or at least, he was the last time I saw him, which was about half an hour before we took that dive off the bridge." 

"Then Damyen's here? In Welford?" Kathal looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. "But I can't . . . there's no way I can help him, not when I'm like this! Stupid kid, why did he have to—" 

The coughing began again, and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I crossed the room, knelt down beside him, and was just about to extend my focus when Geneus said, sharply, "Shouri—do not." 

" _Why_ not?" I asked, equally sharp. "It's obvious that he needs help, and from the looks of it, no one else here has even been trying." 

"If I am correct about what he is suffering from and why, attempting to heal him will result in your maryoku being drained again. And it will produce no improvement in him. Heike, this—" Geneus gestured at Kathal. "—has been going on for several years, has it not?" 

Heike nodded. "Kathal was healthy enough when he joined us, but his condition started to develop not long afterwards . . . I'd say it's been a little more than seven years. He started coughing blood around the time that Alazon contacted us. If not for that, he might have come with me to join her." 

"And healing does not help him." 

"No, it doesn't." Heike was actually smiling faintly. "What did we miss?" 

"His genetic inheritance. Houseki and maryoku . . . do not combine well, but I doubt there are any human medical texts which describe houseki poisoning as a condition. It is seldom seen even in Shin Makoku, since Mazoku who practice houjutsu are vanishingly rare." 

Heike's smile had faded again. "You're saying that Kathal is _Mazoku_?" Kathal himself was staring at nothing, eyes wide with disbelief. 

"The description his brother gave us suggested out-of-control fire majutsu, he appears far too young for his supposed age, and while there are certainly humans with blue eyes, that particular shade of deep, intense blue is usually a Mazoku trait. And he is a foundling, or so I understand. I do not pretend to understand what a Mazoku child was doing in Cimaron, but everything does seem to point in that direction." 

Kathal laughed, but it wasn't a sound that suggested amusement. Instead it was ragged, hysterical. "This is a dream, isn't it? Lord Geneus returns to us in the person of a double-black Mazoku, and is now trying to convince me that I'm one of those filthy creatures myself . . . it can't be real. It can't! I'm drowning in the river . . . or it's still last night . . . delusions . . . ridiculous . . ." The laughter became a cough, and he pushed the handkerchief into position again with one hand while the other clawed at the houseki around his neck. I muttered a curse, not certain what to do, then forced myself to relax as Geneus crossed the room in three quick strides and grabbed Kathal by the shoulders. A few moments later, Kathal's coughing fit eased, and he leaned forward, jerking himself free from Geneus' grasp. "What did you just do? That felt . . . I don't understand . . ." 

"I soothed your maryoku and made it—temporarily—stop attacking your own tissues. However, casting any houjutsu that requires a houseki focus will cause it to start again. You will need to give up that practice if you wish to live. Your lungs are too badly damaged to sustain much more of this." 

"Nightmare," Kathal muttered. "Give up my one worthwhile skill? Like hell I will." 

"The crystals are only barred to you for a time," Geneus said. "In ten years or so, once you have healed and your body has purged itself of the corrupted energies, you will be able to use them again if you wish to do so, albeit with some caution." 

"Ten _years_?!" 

"In this case, it is unfortunate that you formed a compact with fire, rather than one of the other elements," Geneus said. "Water and wind react to attack by flowing around, earth resists passively . . . but fire attacks and attempts to drive out any invader, often causing collateral damage in the process. For the past several years, your body has been a battlefie—" 

Kathal suddenly slammed both his hands down on the table-crate. Geneus rescued the candle with preternatural reflexes. Both the mugs fell over onto their sides. One of them nearly bounced off the tray. That one was empty, but the other splashed a couple of tablespoonfuls of something brownish over the wood. "Quit patronizing me! I need my houjutsu _now_! Otherwise, how am I ever going to look after my brother? Without it, I can't even protect myself, much less get him home . . ." 

"I used to think the same way," I blurted out, and suddenly everyone was looking at me. I took a deep breath. "I have a little brother too—he's a few years older than Damyen. When we were younger, I worked my ass off trying to keep him safe. Then, when I was about eight, they told me that in a few years, he was going to have to leave our homeland and go to Shin Makoku to become their next Maoh." 

Kathal wasn't hysterical anymore, or trying to break the furniture. I considered that progress even if he ended up laughing _at_ me when I was done talking. 

"After I heard that, I threw myself into training for the future in every way I possibly could," I continued. "I educated myself in politics and business, diplomacy, leadership . . . I seriously considered going into the military for a while, but my home country's been at peace for a very long time, and our army and navy don't have the prestige they once did, or offer the opportunity to gain real experience in fighting. I did try to acquire what fighting skills I could as a civilian. Learning magic wasn't an option, because houjutsu isn't practiced back home, and my maryoku was still dormant, but I would have gone after that too, if I could. I intended to protect my brother at any cost. And then, in the middle of it all, I found out my brother had _already_ gone to Shin Makoku, via a complicated majutsu trick, and been crowned. Not only that, but he'd gotten mixed up with a bunch of boxes that might have ended up spelling the end of this world." 

Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at Geneus. He offered me the slightest of nods, which I hoped meant that he thought I was having some effect. 

"It made me a little crazy." I could feel my face getting hot as I admitted it. "I didn't feel I was ready to deal with any of it yet—knew I wasn't strong enough to protect him in any way—and I did everything short of chaining him to his bed to try to keep him from going back to Shin Makoku. The thing is, looking back, I don't think I _ever_ would have felt ready to do what I thought I needed to do, even if I'd spent a thousand years training and practicing. And when I followed my brother back to his new country, most of what I'd forced myself to learn was a lot less applicable than I'd expected. The only way I could learn to protect him was . . . to protect him. You'll do okay, really, even without houjutsu. The important parts are to want to look after him, to try as hard as you can, and to find people you can trust to help." 

Kathal was staring at me, and I wasn't sure what was going on behind those blue eyes. "Your brother. Is the Maoh." 

"Yeah." 

"And you still feel you need to protect him." 

I shrugged. "Yuuri is convinced that he can right all wrongs and bring about world peace just by talking to people—and shaking them up a bit with majutsu when he feels they're too selfish to see sense. He always convinces himself to see the best in people, and he doesn't have a suspicious bone in his body. King Saralegui of Small Cimaron manipulated him into sinking a good chunk of Big Cimaron's navy because Yuuri refused to admit to himself that someone he saw as a friend was less than trustworthy. It isn't physical protection he needs so much as someone to be appropriately cautious of strangers on his behalf." 

"Why would they pick someone like that to be the Maoh?" 

Another deep breath. "Well, that's a really long story. The same one that explains why Geneus came back as a double-black Mazoku and not as a human, sort of." Heike's expression had become rather inquisitive, and Kathal at least wasn't complaining, so I added, "What do you know about the founding of Shin Makoku?" 

It took a while to explain it all. At some point, Josak rearranged the crates, and I sat down. A bit later, someone came and replaced Heike's tray with another that held five mugs of the same spiced and sweetened tea they'd served at the crepe shop Geneus had taken me to in the port city. I had expected Geneus to take over the narrative before I got more than a little ways into the events of four thousand years ago, but he remained silent, listening, while I did my best to explain the Originators, the Forbidden Boxes, and Shin'ou's death. 

"They had a plan," I said, and took a drink of lukewarm tea. "One that would hopefully get rid of the Originators forever. But it required two things: a person with a very pure soul who was also capable of wielding a tremendous amount of maryoku . . . and someone who knew what the plan was and would be capable of preventing even a badly corrupted Shin'ou from shifting it too far off-course. I don't know how, but the Great Sage somehow arranged things so that his soul would retain his memories even after he died and was reincarnated. And then, two thousand years later, that soul was born in Cimaron as a son of the Stornway family." 

Heike's eyebrows had risen slightly. "That actually makes a lot of sense. I was one of the ones who went with Alazon to the old laboratory where she had found the crystal, and there was a very large painting on the wall . . ." 

" . . . which, if Lord Günter von Christ ever sees it, is gonna get shipped back to Shin Makoku and put in the treasure vault at Blood Pledge Castle," Josak said. " _After_ he faints several times at just the thought of a guaranteed-accurate picture of the Originators' War, painted by the Great Sage himself. It's a pretty impressive piece of work even without the whole historical thing, though." 

"You've seen it," Heike said. 

"Well, yeah. I was stuck escorting the other Great Sage there, back when we were still trying to figure out who you guys—" A wave of Josak's hand took in both Heike and Geneus. "—were, and what Alazon was after." 

Kathal blinked. "The _other_ Great Sage?" 

"The Great Sage's soul was not drawn into the crystal when I copied my memories," Geneus said. "It went on to another two thousand years of various incarnations, while I remained frozen in stone. And so it could be argued that I am an imposter after all." 

_Like hell,_ I wanted to say, but Heike got there first. "I would say that you and this other are both equally valid . . . and as far as I'm aware, he's made no effort whatsoever to contact us or assert his leadership. I have every reason to respect you, but he's a complete unknown." 

I wondered if Heike recognized the flicker of surprise that crossed Geneus' face for what it was. 

"Y'know, I've been wondering for a while why you made that crystal in the first place," Josak said. "Since your memories were going to get carried forward anyway. Ken-kun doesn't like to talk about it, and what he _has_ said doesn't make much sense once you take that into consideration." 

_And since when is he "Ken-kun" to you?_ I wondered, eyebrows rising. Then again, Josak did have a slight mischievous streak, and he and Murata probably got along well. He and Murata and maybe Shin'ou . . . Now _there_ was a disturbing thought. 

"Because by that time, I had realized that while all of my memories were _available_ to all of my incarnations, some of the people I became seemed to have little interest in what they contained. Some of them were simply irresponsible, or thought the memories were delusions. Others had been taught from infancy to hate Mazoku, and locked away the memories that conflicted with that. And a few had personae so different from the original that they could not make sense of what their minds contained. Likewise, my ability to recall the details of _their_ lives varies according to a number of factors. It seemed a sensible precaution to make a record of an incarnation where the earliest memories were clear in my mind, lest the version of me born into the crucial era in which the plan would reach its climax should prove unable to access them. I expected the record to be used as a reference if the need for it developed. I did not even consider the possibility that someone would find a way to incorporate it into a homunculus core." 

"This can't be what you wanted to talk to us about, though," I said, after a moment of silence. 

Heike sighed. "No, I wanted to talk about logistics, because I'm at my wits' end and I'm hoping that a fresh perspective will help." 

"Go on," Geneus said. 

"A bit of background first, then. About thirty of us escaped the army when the stronghold was destroyed, but only around a dozen stayed with me. I had always intended to return to Welford, one way or the other—the core of the Society has been here for more than three hundred years, and nearly all of the researchers stayed here—so I brought the people I had with me. We couldn't move about openly, of course, given that we don't know what information the army has on us, so we've been living down here in the caves, with the researchers passing supplies to us. I figured that, in a year or so, the army would forget about us and we could gradually dispense with the secrecy. Then that idiot Flood started his little door-to-door search, and the researchers ended up as fugitives too." Heike's shoulders slumped. "So now I have to sneak eight old men and three women, most of whom can barely walk, out of Welford without drawing the attention of the army. And while we do have a few supplies and a little money, we don't have any means of transport. Adalbert has four horses, but even if he were willing to loan them to us, that isn't enough to move two dozen people." 

Well, there was one obvious thing that came to mind. "What about the river?" I asked. "Even if you can't follow it all the way to . . . wherever you decide you're going . . . you should be able to at least use it to get out of town." _And leave the horses for us._

"The waters are treacherous at this time of year," Heike said. "Especially since the river swings north before reaching the coast. But you're right—we may be able to follow it for a short distance. Which puts us at Brenstead, I suppose . . . minus the army, but otherwise in much the same position. Even if we can scrape together the coin, hardly anyone has draft beasts to sell since the army began its sweeps." 

"We will require horses as well," Geneus said. "And it seems that there is only one group of people in this part of Cimaron who have them in substantial numbers. Since they will not sell them, it follows that we must take them." 

Slowly, Heike smiled. "Audacious, stealing from the army." 

"If it were the army of Shin Makoku or even that of Cavalcade, I might be concerned," Geneus replied. "But the Cimaronese army is seldom challenged on its own soil, and I doubt their defenses will be comprehensive." 

There were details to be hammered out, of course, and preparations to make, but in the end it was settled: tomorrow night, we would become horse thieves.


	13. Chapter 10

_I kept my eyes studiously on the mortar and pestle in my lap, trying not to think about what I was mixing, and unable—unwilling—to look at the man who sat beside me. How many times had we come here, to sit under this very tree of a spring morning? How had the last time rushed up on us so quickly?_

_The leaves and seeds had long since been reduced to a fine paste. I forced my hands to stay steady, forced myself to stop putting off the inevitable, and withdrew the waxed paper packet from the satchel I had carried with me. Carefully, I divided its contents._

_"Why only half?"_

_The sound of his voice drew my attention, and I turned my head almost involuntarily. What I saw only made the cold lump that had settled in the pit of my stomach larger. The darkness had grown even in these last few hours, and it was spilling out from under the sleeve of his ruffled shirt to coat the back of his hand. We were doing this none too soon, even though it wrenched at me._

_"The other half is for me," I explained. "Eventually. As part of a different preparation."_

_"I don't understand."_

_I sighed. "In order to cast a spell on a soul, one must first expose that soul. Under normal circumstances, that only happens when the owner . . . is dying. A sufficiently slow poison will give me time to do what I need to do._ Now _do you understand why those spells are forbidden?"_

_I recognized the expressions that flitted across his face and glittered in his intensely blue eyes._ You don't need to do this _and_ please don't harm yourself for my sake _and_ I want to protect you _. . . All empty wishes, and we both knew it._

_"Don't worry," I said, forcing a smile. "I promised you that I would stay by your side, and I meant it. I will be there at the end, to do what you cannot. That is the fate I have chosen for myself." But I would have given anything to make it unnecessary._

_The powder was thoroughly mixed into the paste, and I set the mortar aside. In another pocket of the satchel were a bottle and a spoon and the two battered tin cups that had been our companions in any number of rough army encampments. I used a flicker of air majutsu to pry out the cork, and began to tilt the bottle toward the first cup, only to have his good hand gently grip my wrist. I let my brows rise in question._

_"One last time," he said, leaning toward me. "You won't begrudge me that, will you, my love and my friend?"_

_"Of course not."_

_His mouth tasted as sweet as ever it had, the unexpected softness of his lips achingly familiar. His fingers wove through my hair, then let the strands slip away, one by one. The pain was sharp now, aching all the way down to my soul._

_I had never known anyone like him before, and I doubted I ever would again._

_His hands delved lower, and he seemed disturbed that my body wouldn't respond to those familiar caresses. I smiled at him gently as we parted for air, although inside I wanted to weep._

_"Really, do you think that after what we were doing just an hour ago, I would have anything left now? I am far too old to be capable of such a performance."_

_"Well, I had hoped." His grin, like mine, is just a little false. "And you're not even two hundred yet."_

_"Even at thirty, I doubt I could have roused myself for you a sixth time without using whatever it was that Erhart slipped into the soup that night outside Langeen." I tried to keep my tone light and teasing, but I think I would have failed if he had not wanted as badly as I did to maintain the illusion that this was not happening. We would both overlook the little falsenesses, the notes subtly out of tune, in order to maintain the illusion._

_"Langeen. I had almost forgotten about that." His hand caressed the side of my face, fingers splayed along my cheekbone, thumb stroking the edge of my jaw, and I wondered if anyone else would ever touch me this way, tender and warm. Soukoku were not as reviled now as we had been in the days before the war, but all that meant was that some people treated me with awe, rather than spitting at my shadow. Only a tiny handful accepted me as simply a man, and there was no spark between myself and any of them._

_Having known the warmth of a lover by my side, how would I live without it?_

_Perhaps I would use the other half of the powder sooner, rather than later, after all. Whatever else might happen, I was not likely to emerge from that passage as a Soukoku. Perhaps then I could . . . but would that not be betraying him, to seek comfort in another's arms? Gods and spirits, how I ached, wishing that it could all be undone . . . But that also meant wishing for nothing less than the destruction of our world._

_"Odd, since I seem to recall you saying you would never forget that night for the rest of your life." Make the words just a little tart, spiced with the merest hint of jealousy, since we had not been together, then. Although we might have been joined a little sooner, had I not continued working on the plans for the next battle while the others were eating, and then emerged from my tent to find the entire camp in the grip of an orgy . . ._

_Somehow, he managed to laugh. "Well, I'll certainly never forget how sore I was the next morning! There are some positions—and some partners!—that are . . . best used sparingly."_

_I sighed and moved to pour. This time he did not stay my hand, and red wine splashed into first one cup, then the other. It was not the finest of vintages, but rare enough for all that: the last bottle remaining of those that had come from his family's vineyards the year before the war reached those lands and the vines were trampled into the earth, a brutal trimming from which they could not possibly have recovered. Perhaps one of those who now owned a sliver of that ground would plant new grapes, but they would never be quite the same as the old._

_He watched me gravely as I took a spoonful of the thick paste from the mortar and mixed it into the second cup. "It . . . won't hurt, will it?" So like him, to ask that question only now._

_I shook my head. "You will sleep, that is all." But from this sleep, there would be no waking. That was the sole purpose of the leaves and the seeds: a sopoforic that would fell a horse, and hopefully spare him any pain._

_My own dose would have to be mixed with a stimulant and a numbing agent, to keep me awake and able to concentrate even as my body began to fail me . . . No, I would not think of that yet._

_He accepted the cup that I handed him with the sober expression that he showed me only in private, where his low spirits could not compromise the morale of his followers._

_"Shall we have a toast, then?"_

_"If you wish," I said, taking up my own cup._

_"Well, then. To a world free of the Originators' shadow."_

_We clinked cups gravely, carefully, to avoid anything spilling from his into mine, and then we drank. The taste of the wine was familiar, faintly salt, as though his kin and their vassals had known what was coming to them and wept as they trampled out the vintage, wept as we both would weep here and now if it would not shatter the illusion._

_He finished nearly all of it before he yawned. "You were right. I do feel tired, and my hands are tingling, but it isn't . . . bad."_

_He laid his head in my lap, threw his arm across my knees, and smiled, ever-so-slightly. My hand closed around the cup with near-bonebreaking force as his eyes slid shut, but I forced myself to drink slowly, stroking his short blonde locks until his breathing faded and I had to take the soul-bottle from my sash._

_The soul itself came easily to my hand the moment its mortal ties were severed, but that was not the only thing I wished to place in the bottle. I wove gossamer spells about his mind and memory and all the other things that had made up the man and drew them in too, heart aching as I drew the shadow with them—but that, too, was necessary. If we left even the least mote uncontained, we might find ourselves fighting another war before the last battle of the first one had ended._

_Only after I had corked the soul-bottle was I free to let the tears spill from my burning eyes, to drink the rest of the wine, pouring it with hands that shook so badly that I almost spilled it across his cooling flesh. But there was not enough left in the bottle to grant me true forgetfulness, even for a moment._

_They found me there, hours later: Lawrence and Sigbert, arguing quietly and companionably until they crested the hill, then falling silent as they saw me sitting there, staring into nothing, hands long since stilled because I knew the one in my lap could no longer feel anything they did._

_Sigbert, being Sigbert, left Lawrence to speak for both of them._

_"I'm sorry. I thought there would be more time."_

_"So did we," I said softly. "Nevertheless . . . is everything ready? I did not have the heart to monitor its progress."_

_"They're still working on the outer wall, but the part you said was most important . . . that's done." A hesitation. "Do you want us to take him?"_

_A shudder ran through me, and distantly, I heard myself say, "No."_

_Carefully, I tucked the soul-bottle away, called upon the earth spirits for strength, and lifted him. The funeral would have to be a quiet one, not the matter of state that he deserved, but if even one witness were to set down times and details and names, it might break the legend that we must build in order for our plan to succeed. After I laid him in earth, his true name would never be spoken again, nor mine. We would discard our mortality in favour of myth and archetype, and remain here forever in a misty sort of way, protecting what we had built._

_It was cold comfort that he would be remembered. Beside his smiles, his laughter, the warmth of his touch, or the soft sounds he would make as he lay beside me, sated, of a winter's evening, it was as nothing at all._

_I told him once that if I lost him, I might break. I had to cling to what we meant to do, or I_ would _break, and it would all be for naught. And that thought, that all of this might be wasted, was the only thing that would sustain me through the days and months ahead._

I'd rolled up the Cimaronese uniform jacket for a pillow when I'd bedded down. When I woke up from _that_ , it was soaked with tears that kept trickling out even as I fought to reclaim my identity as Shouri Shibuya. I would breathe deeply, over and over again, and wipe my eyes, and still more moisture would appear at the corners, as though it was trickling through porous stone. Beside me, face faintly visible by the light of a single candle, Geneus shivered, limbs tangled in the makeshift bedding that was the best any of us could hope for tonight. 

I could understand why he'd had that nightmare. The topic of Shin'ou's death had come up more than once that day. Two thousand years' worth of nightmare fodder sloshing around in his head, and I was willing to bet that that memory had to be the absolute worst his mind held. How did he manage to contain all that pain? People's faces are supposed to relax when they're asleep, but Geneus' expression right now was haunted, and his back hunched defensively. 

It made me ache with the need to protect him, the same bone-deep need I'd always felt around Yuuri when he was little and something had hurt him. Geneus' hurt was more complex, but hopefully the solution was right there in the dream itself. 

There's a cure for feeling alone, and that's having someone there with you. 

I picked up the coat and folded jacket and single motheaten blanket that formed my bed and arranged them beside Geneus' equally ill-assorted makeshift pallet. Laid down again. And carefully slid my arms around him from behind, hoping not to wake him. 

I was surprised and tentatively pleased when he rolled over and snuggled up against me. He never opened his eyes, but he did sigh softly as he pressed his face against my shoulder. "Mmh . . . Shouri." Then he relaxed, and his breathing slowly evened out again as he slid back down into a deeper level of sleep, leaving me wide awake. 

He knew it was me. He _knew_ it was me, and yet he accepted . . . trusted . . . There was a lump in my throat, and a strange, warm feeling spreading through me. _He's been betrayed by the person who mattered most to him, and yet he still trusts. Trusts_ me _, Shouri Shibuya. I am one of the most important things in his world._

Scary. And yet thinking it made that warm feeling stronger. 

_I think you're displacing Yuuri as the most important person in_ my _world._ And that was scary too, but . . . Yuuri didn't need me the way he once had. Yuuri had an entire country's worth of people to look after him now. Geneus only had me. 

Slowly, I drifted off to sleep again. When I woke up, I had both hands tangled in his hair. I had to admit that it was one of my favourite purely physical things about him, black and thick and silky, like a whisper of midnight wind . . . 

I sighed. _Poetry, now? Is that better or worse than recognizing his scent or the feel of his maryoku?_ In my more honest moments, I was willing to admit that I'd inherited a bit of my mother's goofy romantic streak—that was the other reason I played dating sims, because it just wasn't acceptable for a guy to read sappy shoujo manga. I'd never felt inspired to poetics before, but I'd certainly courted Keiko with flowers and chocolates and all the rest, although after a while, nothing I could do could keep her from noticing that there were parts of my life I just wouldn't share with her. I mean, how could I have explained to a human about being Mazoku? Mom had accepted it when Dad had told her, but Mom was . . . unique, and Keiko was a lot more hard-headed. 

Geneus would know exactly how that felt—having a secret that you couldn't tell anyone. If, in his former lifetimes, he'd ever tried to explain to anyone about being the Great Sage, I'd bet he'd met with anything but acceptance. Disgust, maybe, if he'd been talking to a human from this world, or pity, or blank incomprehension, or even awe, if he'd been talking to another Mazoku and that person actually believed his confession. 

Another one of the subtle ways we were perfect for each other, or would have been if he hadn't been in love with someone else and I had been able to fit him into the life I wanted. 

"Mmh . . . Shouri?" 

"Good morning," I said softly, glad that he hadn't moved the lower half of his body, because I had some serious morning wood . . . but I was getting almost used to that. Not fun, but I could handle it. 

"I am tempted to stay here and let the morning take care of itself, but regrettably we have too much to do." A hesitation. "This is, might I add, not how I expected to wake up." 

"You were dreaming about Shin'ou's death," I said. "It was giving you the shakes. Besides, I was kind of cold." 

"Ah. Our next lesson is going to be about dream-seals, I see." 

"I guess so." Stretching meant letting go of his hair, unfortunately. "Man, I would kill for a bath." Unfortunately, you couldn't take infinite hot water for granted in this world the way you could back home. Four days of grime on board ship, then a quick fifteen minutes in the bathtub of the inn in Spensport, then nothing for four more days—the inns we'd been staying at until we hit Welford mostly hadn't had any running water at all, and I'd been too damned tired to haul buckets and split wood for the one that had provided a drum bath. I expected I'd get used to living with the dirt eventually, but right now, well, I itched. 

"Given an entire river to play with, I may be able to manage something." 

I blinked. "Really?" 

Geneus smiled. "I was considering making the attempt anyway, and you have just decided me." Somehow, he managed to disentangle himself from our makeshift blankets and rise to his feet in a single, smooth motion. I sat up and pulled on my boots. 

Fully dressed, we made our way out of the little cul-de-sac where we'd spent the night. Or, for all I knew, just part of the night—there was no way of telling what time it was down here. I could hear someone snoring, not too far away, probably Adalbert or one of the White Crow men, since it didn't sound like Josak. Even though we'd had to group up so that everyone would have enough bedding, I'd drawn the line at spending another night with the redheaded half-breed. 

Geneus seemed to know where he was going, and created a small, dim ball of flame to light our way. As we moved away from the snoring, the air became damper and colder, until we found ourselves in a small chamber with a floor that dipped down to house a pool, and a rusted metal grating at one end, beyond which I could hear the rush of the river. 

I bent down and tested the water with my finger. It was ice-cold. I shivered as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geneus' long tunic become a puddle on the floor. 

"You can't be serious," I said. "You'll freeze." 

"Perhaps I _should_ make the necessary adjustments first." Geneus bent down and placed one hand flat against the ground. There was a soft rumble as majutsu rippled through the cave. Stone rose from under the water, pushing up on the rusty grate until it squealed with protest as it was crushed against the ceiling, cutting the pool off from the river completely. Another ripple, and suddenly there was steam rising from the surface of the water, warming the air. Testing the water a second time, I found it comfortably warm. 

It was funny, I reflected as I unbuttoned my shirt, how hardly anyone in Shin Makoku ever seemed to try to use majutsu for anything constructive, Anissina's inventions notwithstanding. Okay, so doing something controlled with majutsu _did_ take more effort than just letting it run loose and blow things up, but if _I_ could do it, with only a couple of weeks of training, then surely someone like Gwendal or Günter . . . Well, okay, maybe not Günter. If Yuuri came walking by at the wrong moment, he might flake out and let something get loose. But Gwendal was solid enough, and you'd think they'd be able to put strong earth-wielders to work leveling land for roads or something. Or maybe they already did, and I'd just never been in a position to notice. I'd have to ask someone when we got back. 

Rather than plunge straight into the pool, we washed first while standing at the edge, using dragons of warm water and a quarter-bar of lavender-scented soap Geneus had had in his pockets. It was awkward, but it _felt_ wonderful. Even with the lavender smell, and my having to keep my back to the only other person in the room all the time and think fixedly of carnivorous marine worms so that Little Shouri didn't get any more excited than he already was. 

Geneus was already done washing when I slid into the pool beside him, and I had to admit that Josak was right: being able to clean all that hair so quickly was unnatural. Useful, though. 

"It's hard to believe it's only been a week since we left Blood Pledge Castle," I said. "It feels like it should be a month, at least." Come to think of it, it hadn't even been a month since I'd ambushed Yuuri in the bathroom and we'd landed in the pond on Hube's lands. That felt like it had happened years ago. Some of the less important details about life on Earth were starting to fade from my mind, and it occurred to me that I should be more worried about that. Shouldn't I? I was going to go back, after all. Someday. 

"Certainly a great deal has happened since then," came the quiet reply. "And I expect that a great deal more will happen before we can return." 

"You're worried." 

"Yes. And I will continue to be so until we have definitive news from the north, and perhaps even longer than that. I cannot plan without information, and one secondhand report from a stranger who may or may not have been there does not qualify." 

I licked my lips. "If there's another Originator, one that wasn't locked up in the boxes, then how has this world survived all this time?" 

"I truly do not know." Geneus grimaced. "We never knew where the Originators came from, or what they truly were. What we fought was only in part an agglomeration of negative emotion—it had intelligence, and was capable of formulating a strategy. I always thought that there was some kernel, some _mind_ , at the center of the darkness, but it was so wrapped about in black emotions and vile energies that attempting to probe too deeply into its structure could make one ill . . . or steal one's own mind away. I once saw a man—the last of Shin'ou's close kin, his father's sister's son—force himself deeper than he should have gone, searching for the core of it. It made him into a . . . _thing_ , like one of the dolls, but bearing the semblance of the man he once was—such transformed humans formed the bulk of its armies, in the old days, although the dolls were always there to supplement them. And now, I am forced to wonder if it started like this, hidden in some remote corner of the world until it grew beyond what any of us could easily defeat . . ." 

"This one's still small, though," I said. "So we have a chance, right? Probably a good chance. Even if we can't destroy it, we should at least be able to seal it up." 

"As you say. Or this may be a false alarm, serving no purpose but to leave us flinching at shadows." He didn't look as though he believed that, though. 

I touched his hand. "Everything will be fine. One way or the other." 

"Well, aren't you two cozy." 

"Lord von Grantz." Geneus' tone was even, but a tiny shift in his expression told me that he was, in fact, quite annoyed at the interruption. 

"Hope you've got room for one more." It wasn't a question, and his cloak was already being folded over a rock to keep it off the damp floor. 

"If you clean up first," I said as he shucked off his shirt. "Soap's over there in the corner," I added, pointing. 

"You might have to rinse me off, then, _Lord_ Shibuya and Lord . . . Sage." He spoke the final word as though it tasted bad, and to him, maybe it did, but at least he grabbed the soap and sluiced a handful of water over it to get the lather started. Adalbert von Grantz had the linebacker-like physique that I'd thought had to be hiding under those clothes: not an ounce of fat, but his muscles had muscles, even thicker than Josak's, layered in big, heavy slabs. Not My Type, with a capital N-O-T. "Unless there's a bucket somewhere in here that I've missed." 

"You didn't come here for a bath," I said. 

The big blonde Mazoku displayed a nice line of white, even teeth. "No, but since I haven't had the opportunity in a while, and you've arranged such pleasant surroundings for one, I figured I'd take advantage." Then the smile vanished like the sun going out. "Truth is, I wanted to talk to the two of you—and Gurrier, but he can wait." 

"About what?" I asked. 

"About what's next." Now Adalbert was frowning. It was kind of a frightening expression. "Heike wants to go with you, and lumber me with the problem of smuggling those old coots from the White Crow out of the country. And that Carter boy—Kathal, was it?—is crazy enough to want to go along too, even if he's in no condition. He seems to be developing a Thing for you, M'Lord Sage." 

"Merely misplaced hero worship, unless something has changed in the past twelve hours," Geneus said. 

"And with a group like _that_ you're going to attack whatever it is that's taking over the north? There isn't much news, but what we _have_ gotten hasn't been good." 

"We figured," I said. "But it's a little late for us to turn back." 

Adalbert looked at me, twisting around so that I also had a good view of the soap suds dripping down his back and butt. "You're not your brother." 

I raised my eyebrows. "So you figured that out just by looking at me?" 

"You don't have his kind of power." 

"Closer than you think, maybe." I really hadn't made a good impression on him outside Alazon's citadel, then. Embarrassing, but there wasn't much I could do about it. 

"I wasn't trying to say that you're weak. If you were, we'd all be floating frozen corpses. But if you're right and that's another Originator up there . . ." 

" . . . it'll at least be small enough to all fit into one box this time," I said, which got me a snort from Adalbert and a half-smile from Geneus. "And it probably won't eavesdrop, either." 

"It isn't like I have a choice in this place," Adalbert said. "Maybe you haven't been here long enough to notice, but the acoustics in the caves are weird. Sound carries a lot farther than you think it should." He was working on his hair now, rubbing lather into it, and I wondered how he felt about smelling of lavender. "I'm almost tempted to go north with you, but Heike's houjutsu skills are one hell of a lot more impressive than mine, and if you need someone to wave a sword around, Gurrier's pretty good. If it really is . . . that . . . you're going to need the best you can get. Of everything." 

"And if you came with us, you would have to travel with other Mazoku," I said. "Yuuri's told me a bit about you. He says you hate to be around us." 

Adalbert snorted. "Not really. What I hate is the way most Mazoku _think_. Being from the other world, you're not likely to start claiming whatever goes wrong that we can't fix is the 'will of Shin'ou', and the Lord Sage doesn't seem inclined in that direction either, surprisingly enough." 

"That may be because where others envision a god, I remember a man," Geneus said. "And while losing his body seems to have made him more perceptive in some ways, it does not appear to have improved his judgement in the least. Or his sense of humour. I suspect anyone who believes in his infallibility should be assigned to clean up after him for a month or so." 

"Heh. That bad, was he? I'm ready for that rinse now," Adalbert added, setting the soap aside. Geneus flicked his hand, and sent a water dragon coiling over him for a moment before it dissolved into a sort of crude shower. 

"I do not know what I could say about Shin'ou that would truly do justice to both the good and the bad," Geneus said quietly as Adalbert slid into the pool with us, making an inarticulate noise of appreciation. "He was not the same person in private as he was in front of his prospective chroniclers. His mistakes, his sillier pranks, his loves and his fears . . . those were all carefully hidden, and with good reason." 

"Somehow, I just can't envision the First King as a prankster," Adalbert said. 

Geneus raised an eyebrow. " _You_ were not present the day he decided to use Rufus von Bielefelt's underclothes as a battle flag. Or the day when every left boot in Blood Pledge Castle except mine was found encased in crystal shortly before he would have been expected to go riding with an eligible daughter of the von Christ family in whom he was not at all interested. The crystal in question was annoyingly resistant to majutsu, and it took us all day to extract the footwear—although Shin'ou's improbable explanation about a crystal-spitting beetle with a left-boot fixation was more trying than the work involved." 

Adalbert laughed. "Question is, why didn't he touch _your_ boots?" 

"Because the last time he had victimized me with one of his pranks, I had forced him to do his own paperwork for the better part of a month afterwards." 

_And made him sleep alone, too, I'll bet,_ I thought. At least Geneus' skewed smile suggested that these were fond memories. 

"You really going to take that Carter boy with you?" Adalbert asked suddenly. "Traveling with an invalid's going to be a pain, you know. He's so weak he can't ride for long. Might mess up your horse-stealing plans." 

"If he wishes to come, I would not choose to refuse him," Geneus said. "He may prove to be more important than he appears. However, the ultimate decision rests with Shouri." 

"Actually, I have a feeling that it's Damyen who'll ultimately decide one way or the other," I said. "But if they want to come along, let them. Kathal's original family might be more inclined to make nice with us if we bring their missing son back . . . I take it I'm not the only one who thinks they have something to do with this." I mean, it was obvious, right? How many Mazoku could there _be_ wandering around Cimaron? 

"And as for our horse acquisition plan," Geneus said, "with your permission, Lord von Grantz, I had intended to borrow two of your party's mounts and send Kathal on ahead with an escort, to rejoin us as opportunity permits. _Then_ we . . . borrow . . . the horses. As long as we avoid killing anyone or stealing some officer's prized war-stallion, the army is unlikely to pursue us far." 

Adalbert blinked. Then he chuckled. "Almost sounds like you've done this before." 

"And how do you know I have not?" 

That startled another laugh out of the blonde Mazoku. He shook his head. "I don't understand how you and that boy Murata can both be the Great Sage. He's so damned goofy when he isn't being secretive, but you . . . you I actually _like_." 

Geneus' mouth thinned, and he rose from the water without a word. I ducked my head before I could get too clear a view of his ass—just imagining it had Little Shouri jumping. I wanted to reach out to him, wanted to comfort him, but I also knew that he wouldn't want Adalbert to see us that way. So my hands stayed under the water's surface, clenched into fists, as he dried himself with a flick of majutsu, sending droplets spraying back into the pool, and reached for his pants. Only when he was semi-decent and had sat down on a convenient rock to comb out his hair did I pull myself out of the water and do a clumsy imitation of his majutsu trick, very aware all the while that Adalbert was staring at me. 

The borrowed uniform pants felt stiff and greasy between my fingers as I picked them up, but my others were still with the carriage, so it was wear these or go naked. I breathed through my mouth as I put them on. Then, still barefoot on the warm, water-slick stone, I approached Geneus and put my hand lightly on his wrist. 

"Allow me," I said. 

"As you wish." He surrendered his comb to me. Actually, I don't think it had started out as his—the pale driftwood, with its inlay of gold wire and mother-of-pearl, struck me more as something Alazon would have liked. The two missing teeth told a different story, though: Geneus had the patience to make the best use of even a damaged tool, and I don't think Alazon did. To satisfy her, the tool had to be able to do the job by itself, working around its own brokenness in the process. 

His hair really was like silk, soft and fine and heavy. Sometimes the strands would catch on the rough areas on my fingers, the calluses I was developing from sword-work despite the gloves that I couldn't not wear in this weather. Thankfully, there weren't many tangles for me to sort out, because I wasn't sure I could have done it gently enough to satisfy myself. Geneus probably would have forgiven any trivial pain I might cause him in such a way, but I would have felt guilty anyway. 

I returned the comb when the entire black curtain lay smooth on his back, like a silken waterfall, and watched as his fingers divided it in three and then flickered quickly, in and out, twisting it into a braid. I couldn't seem to stop staring as he clasped the end with the silver band that would hold the braid in place, then bent and picked up his long tunic, shaking it out and sliding it over the pale skin and sleek muscles of his back. Then he looked at me and gestured in the direction of the rock he'd been sitting on. 

"Your hair is in a disgraceful condition and I should have done something about it before now," he said. "If it gets any more tangled, it will have to be cut off." 

I ran my hand through it absently, wincing as I snagged several knots. Since we'd left Shin Makoku, I hadn't done more than finger-comb it every couple of days. "That wouldn't exactly be a tragedy." 

"I disagree: it suits you better long. However, you will need to start taking better care of it." The _Now, sit down_ was implicit, but I wasn't about to try to argue about it. I sat, clasped my hands in my lap, and closed my eyes. If Geneus liked my hair like this, I wasn't going to cut it off, not while I was still in Shin Makoku. Maybe not even after I got home, if I decided I could live with the looks I was probably going to get when people noticed I'd grown a foot-long ponytail in less than twenty-four hours. 

He started down at the bottom of the longest strands and worked his way up, detangling as he went, somehow managing to never pull anything hard enough to be painful. He couldn't be using majutsu, though—there was nothing particularly elemental about hair. No, it had to be pure practiced dexterity. Mom had been the last person to do anything like this for me, when I was little, and she'd always pulled until I winced and grabbed the brush to finish up myself—not because she meant to hurt me, but because she always had something more important to do. 

In all my memories, only two people had ever treated me, even for a few seconds, like I was the absolute center of their world: Geneus and Yuuri. 

I sighed as I felt Geneus smooth the hair away from my forehead so that he could tie it back again. I didn't open my eyes until I felt his touch on my wrist, and then I blinked at him as he pressed a small object into the palm of my hand. 

A comb. Not the broken-toothed one with its complex inlay, but a simple object carved from a dark wood that looked like ebony but probably wasn't, its only ornament a curving line carved into its spine. 

I blinked, reviewing the last several days in my mind. "You bought this in the market in Spensport, didn't you? At that stall with the herbs." 

Geneus nodded. "I had been waiting for the right moment to give it to you. It seems that I almost waited too long," he added with a wry half-smile. 

I didn't know what to say as my fingers closed firmly around it, other than, "Thank you." It probably wasn't worth much money, but as a memento—something from him that, unlike the sword, I could keep with me even on Earth—it was priceless. 

His hand lingered on my shoulder for a moment before he said, "I need to speak to Heike. It might be best for you to spend your morning in practice—we will soon need all the power we can muster." 

"Wait!" Adalbert said suddenly. "I . . . You might know, or at least be able to guess . . . If Julia . . . if her soul was needed . . . why entrust it to _Conrart Weller_ , of all people? If Shin'ou had asked me, I would have . . ." 

I don't think he'd originally entered the room with the thought of asking that question, although he'd probably been brooding about it all night. And from the tortured expression on his face, he was just as afraid of the possible answers as he was of not knowing. But now that the words had been spoken, he wasn't going to take them back. 

Geneus' smile was . . . quietly sad. "Most likely, he wanted to spare you the additional pain of having to let her go of your own will." 

He was pulling on his gloves as he left the room. I sighed and reached for my shirt, and had it half-buttoned when I heard splashing sounds behind me. I turned to find Adalbert von Grantz trying to get as much water as possible off himself and back into the pool. Or onto the floor—he didn't seem to care much where it ended up. The expression on his face was . . . more thoughtful than anything, really. 

"She _would_ have told him that," he muttered to the wall, or to the world in general. "She never did understand . . ." He shook his head suddenly, with such violence I was surprised I couldn't hear his brain rattling around inside. 

I used my power to flick most of the water off him, and received a nod in return. 

"I think I'll bring a towel next time. You know, you might want to be a bit more aggressive." 

"What are you talking about?" 

Adalbert nodded at the exit. "You and him. Mazoku courtship can be . . . really leisurely, if no one's pushing, and if you're going back to your own world, you're not going to have twenty years to work on him." 

I flushed. "We're not . . . I mean, I'm not . . ." 

"Then what was all of that?" 

"I don't . . ." _Know. Know how to explain. Want to hurt him._ Several possible endings for the sentence sloshed around in my head, and I couldn't seem to get any of them out. And I had a feeling that, if I got much redder, I'd be perfectly camouflaged in a tomato patch. _Neither of us wants to be more than just good friends, damn it!_

"Well, maybe you'd better figure it out. You don't want to end up regretting the time you've wasted." Adalbert grimaced, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that he was talking more about himself and Julia than he was about me and Geneus. 

It was, I told myself as I finished dressing, just that Adalbert was predisposed to see Geneus' and my relationship as romantic. Geneus himself was hopefully inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. If Adalbert had noticed how I felt, surely Geneus couldn't have missed it. Could he? Maybe he wanted to miss it. I would have, if I'd been him. 

_Why does this have to be so complicated?_


	14. Chapter 11

"Then . . . my brother really is here?" 

"Yup. I won't claim he's in the best of shape right now, but now that M'Lord Sage's figured out what's wrong with him, he should start getting better. He's kinda nervous about seeing you again, though." 

"He is?" 

"Yeah. I mean, you were both kids the last time you saw each other, right? Stands to reason that you've both changed, and he's had a bit of a shock recently, finding out that he's Mazoku." 

"I'd been wondering where you'd gotten to," I greeted Josak as I turned the corner into the wider tunnel that led to the area where most of the supplies in the cave complex were stored. The spy had been missing since we'd gotten up this morning, and it was now mid-afternoon. _Bet he ate lunch out too, the lucky bastard, instead of being stuck with dry bread and hard sausage._ "Adalbert was looking for you, earlier." 

Josak rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, boy. He probably wants another rematch. He never did get over my having to throw my duel with him at the Great Games." 

Damyen, in the meanwhile, was staring at me, wide-eyed. Between my eyes and hair being back to their normal colour, and the Cimaronese uniform, I probably didn't look much like the man he remembered from the trip up here. 

"Shouri?" 

"Yeah. Were you okay last night?" 

Josak laughed. "The kid got himself a room at the best inn in town." 

Damyen shrugged, looking embarrassed. "Well, a couple of their stable hands were sick, and they'd had some merchant and his mule train come in . . . and they let the staff use the cheaper rooms, if they're not full up." 

_You're kidding._ I shook my head. "At this rate, you're not going to get a chance to apprentice him—I'm going to put him to work shadowing my brother, instead. That practical streak of his is just what Yuuri needs." 

This time Josak didn't just laugh—he doubled over and stumbled back against the wall, holding his sides. "And you'd do it, too. You've got a serious brother complex, Shou-ri-sa-ma." 

"Shut up," I said, flushing . . . but I knew I was grinning, too. "You're not that much better with Conrad, you know." 

"Ah, well, the Captain _needs_ my help." 

"And Yuuri doesn't need mine?" I meant to say it jokingly, but it came out kind of stiff. _Yuuri doesn't need my help . . . Yuuri doesn't need . . . me?_

Josak stopped laughing and gave me a serious look. "Oh, he needs you, all right. Just maybe not the way you'd _like_ him to need you. He's got a lot of protectors, but he's only got one big brother." 

_Which means . . . what, exactly, if I'm not going to be the one to protect him?_ Wasn't that what being the older brother was supposed to be about? Or . . . was it? I'd never spent a lot of time around people who had siblings, and the only ones who came to mind right now were Lady Celi's three dissimilar sons. Who _were_ protective toward each other, but also shared a deep bond of trust that Yuuri and I had never enjoyed. 

I was really going to have to think about this. 

"Has Josak filled you in on what you missed?" I asked Damyen, fishing for a distraction. 

"That's what took us so long," Josak said, beginning to walk again. "I figured that if he was going to stick around, the kid had as much right as anyone to know what was going on." 

I gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged. "I know it was a bit of a risk, Shouri-sama, but even _I'm_ not dedicated enough to break my arm just so I would have an excuse to infiltrate a group. Not even when I was young and stupid and trying to prove myself." 

I shrugged too. Really, if Damyen was a spy, he would have insisted that our being from Shin Makoku didn't matter to him . . . unless he'd gotten a hint of what Geneus was capable of, and figured he wouldn't get away with hiding the fact that Mazoku disgusted him. Except that an eleven-year-old kid wouldn't be likely to think of that—I mean, _I_ wouldn't have come up with it at eleven. 

Could houjutsu make someone appear much younger than he was? Now _there_ was a disturbing thought, and it sent a dozen bad video game plots involving illusion, disguises, and various types of possession rattling through my head. Geneus was certainly capable of creating almost terrifyingly realistic illusions—would other houjutsu or majutsu practitioners be able to do the same? Extending my focus toward Damyen found nothing, but I had no idea what a static houjutsu spell not being constantly reinforced by a houseki would feel like, if such a thing were even possible. 

In the end, it all came down to Kathal. He was the single person most likely to be able to tell if we had a fake on our hands or not. 

The cave Josak stopped outside of didn't even have a motheaten blanket to divide it from the tunnel, but he clapped sharply and waited anyway. 

"Come in." Kathal's voice was harsh and raspy, but at least he wasn't coughing. 

It wasn't much unlike the little cave where we'd explained things to Heike the previous day, furnished mostly with crates that had taken on a variety of roles as table and chairs and workbench and bookshelves and the underlying structure of the bed that was stuffed into the far corner. Kathal was seated on the bed with his back propped against the wall and a book in his lap. It might have been a more convincing picture of relaxation if even I hadn't been able to tell that the book was upside-down relative to him, though. 

"Brother?" Damyen's voice was soft and uncertain. 

"Damyen?" 

The boy nodded, but continued staring. "You look . . ." 

"Like I've been run backwards through the wringer on Mom's washtub," Kathal said, with a tentative smile. "It's good to see you again, but do Mom and Dad know you're here?" He must have seen our expressions, because he added, "Is something wrong?" 

I cleared my throat. "We figured it was Damyen's place to tell you what happened to your family." Well, really we, or at least I, had figured he didn't need any more shocks yesterday, given the shape he was in, but the other was true, too. 

The colour slowly drained from Kathal's face. "It's bad, isn't it?" 

"Yeah." There was a good-sized lump in my throat, and I swallowed, trying to clear it. 

"They're gone," Damyen said. "All of them. Even Siwa. I . . . I got Shouri and the others to bring me here because—" 

Kathal blinked back the first couple of tears, but in the end there were just too many of them. He scooted forward off the bed with salt water dripping from his chin and wrapped Damyen in a hug that should have choked off the kid's circulation, but Damyen bore up under it until he burst into tears too, sniffling, and wrapped his arms around Kathal's neck. 

Josak caught my eye and jerked his chin toward the entrance to the tunnel. I nodded. Let the brothers have their reunion in private. 

"They're both strong kids," Josak said. "They'll be okay." 

I sighed. "I hope so. What Kathal's had dumped on him these past two days might be enough to break even someone strong." 

"So what's the plan from here?" 

"We spent most of the morning talking about that," I said. "Heike figures we can scrape together enough rowboats and the like to get the White Crow people and some of Adalbert's a few miles downriver. Adalbert's horses—all five of them—will be meeting them there. Those of us who aren't traveling by water, which looks like it's going to be you, me, Geneus, and some of Heike's people, are going to steal as many horses from the army as we can get our hands on. The three of us turn north after that, to someplace called Fenton, and wait for Heike and . . . whoever he decides to bring with him . . . there. Since they're leaving before we are and Adalbert's already sent the horses on ahead, it shouldn't take them more than a day to catch up." 

"Fenton." Josak made a face. "Well, I guess it can't be helped." 

"Is there something wrong with the place?" 

"It's in the middle of a swamp, for one thing. Favourite bandit hangout, for another. I can understand why they want to use it—the army's never been welcome there—but it isn't my idea of a vacation spot. And I hope M'Lord Sage knows a way to fumigate a place with majutsu, 'cause the last time I was there, I picked up bedbugs _and_ fleas. And a few ticks as a bonus." 

"Well, that sounds just great." 

Josak's grimace turned into a lopsided grin. "Sorry you came along?" 

"No." I didn't even have to think about it. "I've learned a lot. Some of it's even been useful," I added, matching his expression. 

Josak laughed. "I've gotta admit, I wasn't so sure about this trip when Lord von Voltaire told me I was going, but it seems to be working out okay. You and M'Lord Sage are gonna be one scary team once you get the rest of the kinks worked out." 

"Thanks—I think." If we were right about what was in store for us when we reached the north, it would certainly be a test of our teamwork. 

I didn't share anyone's dreams that night, maybe because I didn't get all that much sleep to begin with. Instead I dozed, waking at every sound, until Josak showed up with a candle in one hand and accidentally dripped hot wax on me while he was shaking Geneus awake. I swore at him in Spanish as I struggled to roll up my blankets. 

It was time to steal some horses. 

I was probably the least practiced of our group when it came to sneaking through snowy woods in the dark, and certainly the noisiest, although I'm damned if I know how two men the size of Josak Gurrier and Adalbert von Grantz managed to walk over crusty snow without having it crunch under their boots. Since I couldn't tell where I was putting my feet, I probably would have fallen over or brained myself against a tree or something if Geneus hadn't had his arm linked with mine, guiding and supporting me when I stepped on a patch of ice or started to wander from the path the others were following. Heike had sent four men along with us, and if we all rode one horse out and led another, we'd have sixteen of them. 

I heard—and smelled—the animals before I saw them, if you could count catching the light of the crescent moon glancing off the odd white marking as "seeing". They were lined up in a not-quite-even row in an area where the trees were thinner than average, but not quite enough so to make a real clearing. I thought some of them were pawing at the snow, making soft crunching noises . . . Damn, I couldn't _see_ . . . 

"Maryoku is more useful here than eyes," Geneus murmured, and I blinked. _Oh. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?_

I extended my focus . . . and was instantly confused. Always before, when I'd been reaching out with my magic, I'd been trying to examine something specific, not just . . . look. _Slowly,_ I told myself. _Try just that . . . um . . . tall thing over there._ Water, earth . . . a tree? Water underfoot—snow—and then earth below that. Shifting water that was horses, and people, and currents of warm air as they breathed in and out. Geneus' maryoku, with its familiar glittering solidity, and a little further away, something that felt like a coal buried in ashes—Adalbert? Plus the scratchy ache of several houseki behind me. . . Gradually, the world settled back into something like a sensible shape, although I felt like I was going cross-eyed, trying to put what I was feeling together with what I actually did see . . . until I did the sensible thing and shut my eyes. _I'm going to have to practice this, when things settle down, until it stops making me dizzy._

There was a moment of rustling struggle up ahead near the horses. I'm pretty sure there was only one guard, and I _think_ Josak grabbed him from behind, and Adalbert lifted his helmet off and hit him behind the ear with his sword pommel. Or at least that was the most sensible interpretation that I could put on the interplay of water, earth, air, and maryoku that I sensed. 

Geneus pulled me a bit further forward. When we stopped, I could smell horse. For a moment, I also felt warm breath against my ear, just before I heard the flesh-on-flesh sound of a slap. 

"Apparently, this one bites," came the quiet remark. "That would explain why it is picketed a bit apart from the others. Still, it seems a healthy enough animal, and I believe I will appropriate it, and perhaps try to teach it some manners." 

"Better you than me," I muttered. 

"It would be too much of a challenge for you as yet," Geneus agreed, letting go of my arm. He bent and picked something up off the ground. I couldn't sense the object clearly enough to tell what it was, suggesting it didn't have much water in it, although I could feel the recently cut pine branches that had been keeping it up off the snow. "They have even been kind enough to leave us their saddles. Generous folk." 

I snorted. Knowing that I wasn't going to be much use when it came to picking out and preparing horses, I put my back against a tree and did my best to watch for approaching Cimaronese soldiers, but as far as I could tell, everything was quiet. I could only sense the edge of the camp proper, but everyone there seemed to be lying down without moving much—asleep, in other words. 

"Shouri-sama? You awake?" 

My eyes blinked open automatically, and I discovered I could now see Josak as a darker shadow among shadows. Dawn was on its way. "Yeah. Are we ready?" 

"Pretty much. I'll introduce you to your new horse, and then we ride hell-bent for leather through the middle of the camp and out." Josak sounded cheerful. The spy had liked that part of the plan ever since Geneus had originally proposed it. I'd been more in favour of leading the horses out quietly the way we'd come in, but I hadn't realized just how close together the trees were. We'd never be able to get something the size of a horse between the trunks. 

My new mount, when Josak led me to it, was visible only as a large dark blob with another dark blob tied behind it. I had to grope along its side to find the saddle, and it took me two tries to get onto its back. Then Josak handed me the reins. I gripped them tightly and hoped I remembered how to steer. The sky was lightening to pink along the horizon, allowing me to at least see the shapes of things properly. I still recognized Geneus mostly by the feel of his maryoku when he pulled his new horse up beside mine, though. 

"Ready or not, here . . . we . . . go!" Josak was loud enough that they probably heard him in the next barony. He finished with a whoop, and the horses began to move as Geneus' power fanned out around us. He hadn't said what kind of illusion he planned to cast, but it must have been really spectacular, judging from how the soldiers all jumped out of our way as we crossed their camp. The White Crows were firing off bolts of houjutsu at random. Most of them didn't hit anything, but a couple of them set fire to tents or random piles of snow-dusted whatever, adding to the confusion. I just grabbed two handfuls of mane and hoped that my horse was going to keep following the others, because even if I did correctly remember how to steer, I had a feeling I was going to fall off if I actually tried to do so. 

It didn't help that I seemed unable to keep my attention focused forward, of course. Geneus kept drawing my gaze to the side, to where he was guiding his horse through, and sometimes over, the obstacle course at the edge of the space between the army tents. It wasn't just because he was a good rider, although that was certainly true. It was because he was clearly enjoying himself, the more so as the light increased and I could see his smile and the glitter in his eyes. 

We thundered out of the camp and onto the main road north. As the horses' hooves rang on the stone of the bridge, Geneus seemed to notice me watching him, because he turned slightly in the saddle. His smile widened as his eyes briefly met mine, and, corny as it sounds, I felt my heart lurch. _Why do you have to be so damned gorgeous? If only . . . But you aren't_ for _me._

Even if I had been willing to discard everything else I had ever wanted from my life in order to court Geneus—and the thought of doing that was sneaking into my head again and again at unguarded moments—how could I compete with the ghost of the man he'd loved for two thousand years?


	15. Chapter 12

"If this world has an armpit, it's located right in the middle of this place," I muttered, eyeing the low buildings of cut sod that the locals seemed to think were houses. My horse must have agreed with me, because there was a liquid sound from below, and a few moments later the smell of fresh horse piss came wafting up at me. It was no worse than the smell of green rot that seemed to fill the town even though the swamp was rimmed with ice. 

"Fenton does seem to have deteriorated since the last time I was here . . . which I would not have considered possible," Geneus said. _His_ horse was even less thrilled than mine, and flashed me a wild white eye when Geneus' firm grip on the reins kept it from taking a chunk out of my leg with its teeth. We'd figured out by the time we were an hour's ride from the army camp that the horse he'd taken had been picketed a little away from the others for a reason: it had the vilest temperament of any animal that I'd ever met. The third time it had tried to bite Josak, he'd started saying dire things about horsemeat stew. I'd just speculated that it was the main reason we weren't being followed: the army didn't _want_ the critter back. 

My horse jerked and pranced under me as the door of the building immediately ahead of us slammed open and an unshaven tough who looked like he was about Adalbert's size came flying out at a low altitude and tried to plow a furrow in the frozen dirt of the street with his nose. The door closed immediately, but the man, swaying to his feet, went and pounded on it, yelling in a voice so slurred that I couldn't make out what he was saying. 

"Drunk off his ass," Josak observed. "There isn't much else to do around here once the weather gets too cold to cut peat." 

"Great," I said. "Please tell me we don't have to ride past too much more of this." 

"Unfortunately, the inn is on the other side of town," Geneus said. 

"The _only_ inn?" 

"Only honest one," said Josak. "The guy who runs the one at this end works with the bandits—if you look like you've got anything worth stealing, you won't survive your stay. The guy who runs the one on the east side drugs his guests, _then_ robs them blind, and keeps the profits for himself." 

_Ulp._ "Okay, I guess that means we really don't have any choice." 

The drunk who'd been pounding on the door of the . . . bar, or whatever it was, had gone abruptly silent. I looked over my shoulder just in time to catch two other men dragging his unconscious body around the side of the building and into the shadows. 

"Trust me, if we still had the tent, we wouldn't even be coming into town," Josak said. "Did I mention it isn't safe to go out alone? Or eat or drink anything you buy here?" 

"I get it, I get it—I'll stick to you guys like glue." 

"You'd better, Shouri-sama. Not only are we in for a world of trouble if we don't bring you back to Shin Makoku in one piece, but having something go wrong in a place like Fenton would just be embarrassing." 

The rest of my memory of the ride across town is like a series of snapshots. A trio of toughs leering at us from the porch of another bar, one of them licking the blade of his knife like a refugee from a bad period drama. A woman sitting in a glassless window, wearing something like a bikini and trying to look seductive when the only impression she could really get across was "goose-pimpled". Geneus' horse dancing back and away from a dead dog lying in the gutter. A small child with a wilting flower in her hand being snatched inside a sod house by a thin woman with a worn face. 

It really was the armpit of the world, but I still couldn't help but feel sorry for the people who had to live in Fenton. However, I also couldn't see what I could do to improve their circumstances. Fenton wasn't the way it was because of mismanagement or oppression or anything like that (although better law enforcement might have helped). It was simply a marginal place for human beings to live in. 

The inn was called the Marsh Fairy, and was one of the few buildings in town built of wood rather than turf. That didn't exactly mean it was clean or impressive on the inside, though. The counter clerk had rotten teeth, and given the way his left cheek bulged out, either something was terribly swollen in there or he was sucking on something the whole time Josak was talking to him. The conversation wasn't very encouraging, either. 

"Ain't got no empty rooms. There's five beds free in the last on the left, and one in the middle-right. Take it or leave it." 

"We'll take the last one on the left, then. And see if we can get the other guy to switch." 

The clerk spat something brown on the floor behind the counter. "Be surprised if you can get any sense outta him. Hole in his shoulder already smelled bad when he came in the day before yesterday. Belike we'll end up burning the mattress along with the body again, but he did pay for a week in advance." 

I drew in a breath to say something, but Geneus put his hand on my arm and shook his head, and I bit it back. But I did mutter, "I thought this was supposed to be the good inn." 

"It is," came the quiet reply. "Either of the others would have dumped him in the marsh the moment he stopped being able to fight back. If he truly is injured, I promise we will do what we can." 

"You're reading my mind again," I accused . . . but I also smiled, and got a smile in return. 

"The desire to aid others is as deeply ingrained in your character as it is in your brother's, although you tend to be somewhat more . . . practical in applying it. Indeed, you and he are more alike than perhaps you realize." 

I didn't know quite what to say to that. 

Josak came away from the counter with a string of three keys. 

"Are they locking the doors now?" was Geneus' question. 

Josak shook his head. "No, but they've got cabinets under the beds that we can use if we're not too picky. Put them in a couple of years ago after some small-time merchant complained. They're pretty solid, but there's a master key, and I could throw that guy at the desk further than I trust him." 

The inn, if you could call it that, only had six rooms, and judging from the glimpses I got through open doors, they were all laid out to the same plan, with two narrow bunk beds shoved against each doorless wall, and the cabinets built under each bottom bunk. It was a design that crammed as many people as possible into the small spaces, and I didn't doubt that they would rent out the dirt floors, too, given the opportunity. 

The last room on the left was ominously quiet as Josak pushed the door open. The spy walked all the way to the back of the room, turned around, and said, "Oh, crap. He's here, all right, and it looks like he's sicker than a dog." 

The stranger turned out to be on the bottom bunk of the stack behind the door. He was facing away from us with his left shoulder, wrapped in bandages, uppermost. The only other portion of him that we could see was the back of his head, with dark brown hair that had once been cropped short now curling down over where his collar would have been if he'd had a shirt on. 

Geneus looked at me. I nodded, and he sat down on the edge of the bunk and laid his hand on the back of the man's neck. 

"It appears to be an arrow wound," he said after a moment. "Five or six days old, and infected. The arrowhead is still inside, lodged in the shoulder muscle, but the shaft is gone. I suspect he attempted to pull it out himself, and only succeeded in separating the components of the missile. Also . . . he is Mazoku. An earth-wielder. There are signs that he attempted to heal himself, but he only succeeded in making matters worse. If we choose to proceed, I will need to cut him to get the arrowhead out." 

" _Another_ Mazoku?" _I don't like the sound of that, not at all._

"It does seem unlikely that his presence here would be a coincidence. Help me roll him onto his back. If he is an agent of Shin Makoku and not one of our attackers, perhaps Lieutenant Gurrier will recognize—" 

Geneus stopped in mid-sentence and frankly stared as the stranger's head flopped to the side, revealing his face clearly in the narrow band of light that slipped through between the ill-fitted door and its frame. I stared too, mostly because it was so unlike him to be caught aback like that, but to me, the man looked ordinary. Short beard, dark brown hair with grey at the roots, tanned skin, and a face that looked a bit like a softer, rounder version of Gwendal's, and also a bit like someone else that I couldn't quite place. 

"Geneus?" 

"He is the one who attacked us in Spensport." 

_Wait, what?_

"Kind of odd that he'd be all the way up here," Josak said. 

"He probably had to leave town in a hurry after he outed himself by attacking us." I remembered how his majutsu had felt when Geneus and I had wrestled him for control of the ground under our feet, but there was no connection in my mind between that and his face. Maybe without the dye—the brown had to be dye, didn't it? To cover up the uniform dark grey that was only ever seen among Mazoku . . . 

"We will need to get his fever down to have any hope of his being able to answer questions," Geneus said. 

I nodded. I wasn't going to leave even an enemy in this state. 

"Guess you're in charge, then, M'Lord Sage," Josak said. "Tell us what to do." 

Geneus looked the man over thoughtfully, touching his arm lightly and making a second probe of his condition before saying, "Take the top blanket off the bed and lay it, and him, on the floor. We will need the space. Shouri, I will need you to pin his good arm. Josak-san, you will take the legs. Also, we will need clean bandages and that flask of brandy from the bottom of your saddlebag." Once we had the stranger on the floor, Geneus arranged the man's injured arm so that it was away from his side, and knelt on it. His eyes narrowed, and I felt wind majutsu rearrange the air currents in the room into a small, impossibly-sharp blade that hovered just above our would-be-assassin's skin. 

The surgery was brief and brutal, performed without anesthetic. I had to use healing on myself to keep from throwing up when pus and clotted icky stuff started to run from the first cut, staining the wad of old bandages that we'd placed in the man's armpit. The second cut was made flicker-quick, with our patient howling and trying to thrash against the weight of all three of us holding him down. Geneus used earth majutsu to draw the steel arrowhead out, and then opened the metal flask and used the contents to cleanse the wound. The sound the poor bastard made as the alcohol hit his raw flesh is one that I'll probably remember in my nightmares for the rest of my life. 

"I would prefer not to suture it until I am certain that there is no more infection," Geneus said as our patient finally went limp. "He will have to be monitored tonight to ensure that he does not bleed excessively." 

I swallowed. "I gather that's my job." 

"I would be grateful if you were to take the first watch, yes. I will relieve you a few hours before dawn to permit you to get some sleep." 

"Y'know, it's almost time for supper," Josak said with forced cheerfulness. My stomach flipped over again at the mention of food, and I tasted bile. 

"I would not trust any food I found here unless we were to prepare it ourselves," Geneus said wearily. "Nor have I any appetite . . . and Shouri appears to feel likewise. Help me sit this fool up so that I can bandage him properly, and then we should move him back onto the bed." 

I propped the nameless assassin up, supporting him from his right side while Geneus swathed his left in white cotton. Looking over his handiwork afterwards, I was impressed to see that he'd probably done just as good a job as Gisela would have, with the bandages neat and secure and lying flat. 

"How long ago did you study medicine?" I asked. 

"Eight lifetimes ago, at the College of Vwar," came the quiet reply. "It was not so famous then as it later became," Geneus added as Josak shot him a look of surprised respect. 

"So they weren't dismissing nine out of ten students back then? C'mon, Shouri-sama, let's get this guy back into his bunk." 

"About seven out of ten, as I recall," Geneus said as I bent down and tried to find a way of lifting the stranger's upper body that wouldn't hurt him or put pressure on his wound. In the end, I had to settle for making it quick, and blocking my ears as best I could against the whimpers. 

"I don't think I'd have the courage to enroll in a place like that," I said as I slid my hands out from between bandage and straw mattress. "Not if doctoring people is always like this." 

"Preventing the infection from taking hold in the first place is to be preferred to treating it afterwards," Geneus said. "Properly conscious patients are more likely to weep or make unflattering references to their physician's mother than scream. Also, I was not willing to expend maryoku on reducing his pain." 

I gave him a sharp look. "That's . . . a rather subtle revenge." 

"It is as much as I will permit myself in this instance. I am capable of considerable cruelty, Shouri, and it angers me that he would attack you when you were under my protection. And yet I know you would prefer that I not use you as an excuse for such things." 

That . . . threw me, I've got to admit. I felt a need to protect Geneus, but I'd had no idea that it was a two-way thing—that he wanted to protect me. Even though he was technically supposed to be my bodyguard. I firmly squelched the odd feeling that this was an attack on me, and the accompanying thought that _Yuuri_ had never behaved this way. Geneus wasn't my little brother, he was a grown man of considerable ability. My equal, if not my superior. 

And really, when you got right down to it, what had Yuuri been doing when he'd infiltrated the White Crow stronghold to look for me, if he hadn't been trying to protect me? I'd needed him, too, when that damned sword had latched onto me like a vampire. 

_Yuuri doesn't need you the way you'd_ like _him to need you,_ Josak had said. 

Was I being unfair to Yuuri, too? 

The question circled, unanswered, through my head, during two hours' worth of desultory hands of hoket. Geneus was either tired or distracted, because Josak was the one who collected most of the pebbles we were using as stakes. I didn't particularly enjoy the card game, but it did distract me enough that my stomach loosened up and I was able to eat a handful of dried fruit from our saddlebags. I think that was why Josak suggested the game, actually—the big spy was a lot more subtle than he looked. 

After two hours it was too dark in the room to see the cards clearly, so we went to bed. Or Josak and Geneus went to bed, while I sat down on the lower rear bunk with my back to the wall and extended my focus into the room, using majutsu to keep an eye on everyone in the dark. There was a lot of water around—even the ground of the island on which Fenton was built was heavily saturated—but the elemental _feel_ of living things was unique and distinct. 

I kept my primary focus on the stranger-assassin, though. His wound was leaking a bit, but it didn't seem to be dangerous—just a few drops now and again as he shifted restlessly on the bunk, alternately trying to throw off the blanket we'd covered him with, and huddling under it in search of more warmth. On the other side of the room, Josak slept unmoving on his back, filling the air with snoring, while Geneus had rolled over onto his side and curled into a near-fetal position. 

Really, the hardest part was keeping awake in a dark room with no stimulation and nothing much to do except check the stranger periodically. I'd thought the lectures for some of my classes were boring, but they had nothing on this. I played majutsu games for a while, gathering a few drops of water, twining them together into a thread, and then using wind to explode them into a miniature cloud of fog, but even that had limited entertainment value when I couldn't see what I was doing. 

I ended up sitting there with my eyes closed, trying to play through an old dating sim in my head, one of the ones I'd had for so long that I'd practically memorized all the paths. And if the shy, retiring teacher with the long black hair showed a distinct tendency to undergo a gender-swap inside my head, well, it wasn't anything that I couldn't live with. Although it was surreal imagining Geneus in the environment of a normal Japanese high school. Really, I couldn't imagine anywhere on Earth that he would look like he _fit_. Trying to imagine him in other clothes just made things worse. That exotic beauty in a suit? In _blue jeans_? With that river of black hair falling all the way to his waist . . . _Stop salivating, Shouri._ Maybe traditional Japanese clothing would suit him better. Yeah, that I could see. Vivid blue silk, hand-dyed and -patterned in the old style, or maybe a deep, intense purple . . . either would look stunning on him. Dressed like that, he'd be able to stop traffic just by strolling down the sidewalk. 

"Uh . . ." 

My eyes snapped open, but of course I couldn't see anything. Josak was still snoring, and I knew that hadn't been Geneus' voice . . . 

"Wh-where . . ." 

I worked my way carefully across the room and knelt beside the lower bunk behind the door. Paying close attention to what my majutsu was telling me, I was able to find the assassin's hand on the first try and take it in my own. 

"You've been very sick," I whispered. "Try to go back to sleep." 

"Hurts . . ." 

For a moment, I wrestled with myself. I couldn't leave him in pain, and yet . . . wasn't this a waste of power . . . ? In the end I gave in and, laying my hand lightly on his shoulder, channeled healing majutsu into him. 

"You're . . . Mazoku?" 

"Yes. Go back to sleep. We'll talk in the morning." 

"But I—" 

"In the morning," I repeated, wishing I knew how to put someone to sleep—but that was a function of air majutsu that Geneus had thus far mentioned only in passing, and I wasn't about to wake him up to ask for help. 

"Mmh." At last, the stranger gave in, and subsided. 

When Geneus relieved me an hour later, I mentioned that our patient had regained consciousness. 

"Did he seem aware of his surroundings?" 

"Yes." 

"Then it appears he is not permanently impaired . . . unless we should choose to impair him." It's hard to get tone from a whisper, but it was clear that Geneus was still angry over what had happened in Spensport, a slow, cold anger that should have been frightening. But all it inspired me to do was lay my hand on his shoulder. 

"Look," I said. "I'm fine. We're fine. There's no need to take revenge on him for something this trivial." 

I sensed his hand rising to cover mine, felt the warmth of his bare palm against my knuckles, and wondered when he had taken his gloves off. "I have so little left," Geneus whispered. "So very little. And the thought of losing that little . . . it is difficult for me to react rationally." 

"Gwendal didn't mean it when he told you not to go back if something happened to me, you know." 

"On the contrary, he meant every word. Unlike you and your brother, I have neither his affection nor the privilege of his forbearance." 

"Yuuri would—" 

"I estimate the chances of your brother overriding Lord von Voltaire under those circumstances as roughly one in ten. It is difficult to be kind and forgiving when one has just lost a person one loves." 

I closed my mouth firmly on the reflexive denial that Yuuri would do anything like that. I'd heard about what he'd done in Caloria when he'd believed Conrad Weller was dead, although I'd just about had to attack Murata with a pry bar to get the full story. My brother was capable of wanting revenge. 

"I'm still here, though," I pointed out instead. 

"Yes, you are still here . . . and doubtless very tired. Get some sleep, Shouri. I doubt much will have changed by dawn." 

I slipped under the single rough blanket that lay over the straw mattress of my bunk, but although I was tired, sleep was elusive at first. I couldn't seem to draw my maryoku back in, and I sensed Geneus moving silently across the room to the ex-assassin's bed. He stood there for a moment, checking the man's condition I think, then padded back over to me and, quite unexpectedly, sat down at the end of my bunk. The sense of his presence was reassuring, and I finally drifted off a short while later. 

I didn't exactly get to sleep in, though. The morning sun crept through the crevices in the ill-fitting doorframe to splash across my face way too early for that. I pulled the blankets over my head, wondering how in hell the light got down here when there weren't any windows, but it was already too late. I muttered several words that Mom wouldn't have approved of before sitting up and rubbing my eyes, then fished for my glasses on the floor beside the bed and muttered several more before I remembered I'd put them inside my left boot. 

Geneus was still sitting at the foot of my bunk with his back to the corner post, with one leg drawn up and his arms wrapped loosely around it. Josak was sawing wood on one of the upper bunks. 

"Are we just going to let him sleep?" I asked, nodding in the slumbering spy's direction. I didn't even try to be quiet. 

"We will be remaining here for today," Geneus replied with a shrug. "And it isn't as though there is a great deal for us to do while we wait. Nor do I think you wish to play more hoket just yet." 

"You've got that right. And . . . him?" I nodded toward the bunk behind the door. 

"I believe he will wake soon. He needs rest to heal, so I would not force him from sleep prematurely without good reason, lest our work of yesterday be wasted." 

I made a face. "I wish you hadn't reminded me of that. Not that the idea of a breakfast like last night's supper is all that appealing, but I would have liked to at least have the option." 

"Whazzit?" 

Not Josak's voice. It wasn't Josak stirring, either, or hissing in startled pain as he raised his hands to rub his eyes. Geneus was on his feet before I even detected motion from the bunk behind the door, and I yanked my boots on and grabbed my sword . . . just in case. 

Our ex-assassin was examining his bandaged shoulder with a bewildered look on his face. He poked at it with his other hand, and winced. 

"Do not," Geneus said crisply. "If you have any sense of self-preservation, you will also move your arm as little as possible. The muscle is torn where the arrowhead lay, and I had to cut into it to get it out. Overuse may rip it further and cripple you permanently." 

His voice attracted the man's gaze to him, and the stranger did a violent double-take. " _You._ " 

"That's right," I said. "Us. And if you answer all of our questions, we might let you leave here in peace. Otherwise . . ." I knew I wouldn't be able to compose a credible threat and look like I was going to carry it through, so I let the word dangle ominously instead. "First things first. What's your name?" 

"Max." There was a momentary hesitation before he expanded this into, "Maximilian von Radford." 

_Von Radford._ I remembered the head of that family from my encounters with the Council, and Max did look a bit like him. I hoped the older man wasn't involved in this, though—if he was, that meant there was going to be a real mess for Yuuri's people to root out. 

"Well, then, Max." I leaned back against the corner pillar of my bunk, trying to look casual. "Do you like the weather in Spensport at this time of year?"


	16. Interlude:  Sage Advice

"You're wearing a rut in the carpet," he says, adjusting his glasses. 

"Oh, for crying out loud, Murata . . . Yeah, I'm wearing a rut in the carpet. Gwendal said it was about due to be replaced, anyway." 

Which, the sometime Great Sage reflects, explained why, the previous week, he had seen several of the castle servants dragging a very large roll of carpet off a cart—carpet whose subtle, tasteful abstract pattern became a melange of bearbees when viewed close up and from certain angles. 

"I mean, they've been in Cimaron for more than a week, and we haven't heard _anything_." 

_Not true._ But he isn't going to tell Shibuya about that yet. He doesn't like being in on Yet Another Conspiracy to Keep Yuuri Ignorant, but in this case he sees the necessity. Having no news will keep Shibuya here and safe longer than having _bad_ news will, and letting the Maoh charge into the powder keg which is Big Cimaron right now might have the nasty side effect of getting all of the humans pointing their swords at Shin Makoku again, instead of at each other. 

Shibuya wouldn't like that either, if he were to say it. Who would ever have thought that a pure soul would be so much _trouble_? That compulsion of his to save everyone . . . sometimes it does stand the young king in good stead, but Murata is looking forward to the day his friend matures enough to channel and balance it, as Shin'ou did. 

"Your brother has Josak looking after him. He'll be fine." 

"Yeah, but . . . if we hadn't gotten to the White Crow hide-out in time . . . Josak wouldn't have been able to stop the sword from sucking Shouri dry." 

No, Josak wouldn't have. But Geneus . . . would. Murata sighs, trying once again to control his irrational dislike for the other man. It's difficult. Geneus is like a reflection of himself in a funhouse mirror that distorts time as well as space, and whenever he sees him he feels . . . resentment. There is something about what Geneus is, about what he _lets himself be_ , that Murata truly hates. And, oddly, envies. 

He just wishes he could put his finger on it, because it really _is_ irrational to envy anything about the hell the imitation Great Sage has been through, and it's driving him insane. 

"Given a little more time to get over his surprise, Shouri might have been able to get the sword under control," Murata says to his friend. "And even if he hadn't, it would eventually have drained him to the point where it couldn't get any more power out of him, and given up." Thankfully Shibuya doesn't know enough to be aware that being drained to that level is often damaging and sometimes even fatal. It's one of the few times Murata has been glad that his friend's control over his maryoku is instinctive, rather than trained. 

"Under control? Do you really think he could've?" 

"Maybe. He isn't stupid, and I hate to say it, but he has more training than you. I'm pretty sure that the main problem was that the sword had latched onto him to try to restore itself—sort of like the magical equivalent of a drowning guy climbing onto the head of the person trying to rescue him. In fact, a good chunk of the magic that's in the sword now is really Shouri's." Murata forces a grin. "So in a sense, you could say your big brother was the one who trashed your castle again—Saralegui just provided some guidance for the energy involved." 

Shibuya rolls his eyes. "You know, that isn't funny." A hesitation. "Um, how strong is Shouri really? Magically speaking?" 

Murata's grin fades, and he adjusts his glasses so that they reflect light back at Shibuya. Hiding his eyes, and the darkness of knowledge. "I don't know. I doubt that even he knows. Shouri came into his power months later than you did, and his maryoku hasn't reached its mature level yet. Not as strong as you, and I'd guess he probably isn't as strong as Shin'ou either, but when he tops out he may be a close third." 

Given his place in the original plan, Shouri has to be exceptional . . . but Shibuya doesn't need to know that, either. It would just complicate things. 

"Your Majesty! Oh, your Majesty!" 

Shibuya grimaces at the sound of Günter's voice. Then he sighs. And droops. "Guess it's time for my lessons. Again." 

"What does he have you studying?" 

Shibuya sags even lower. "Economics of von Karbelnikoff province, right now. I do understand why I need to know this stuff, but it's even more boring than history." 

Murata grins and says with false cheerfulness, "Still, you're not running away this time! Guess you're maturing." 

"Put a sock in it," Shibuya says, rolling his eyes. "But even economics with Günter is a better distraction than pacing, or working my way through that—" The young king nods in the direction of the pile of documents teetering precariously on the corner of the desk. "I can't even rely on Conrad to rescue me these days—he's too busy with military stuff." 

The Great Sage plasters on a sympathetic expression as Lord von Christ comes in to sweep his friend away. Only when he's alone again does he let the lines of his face settle back into the grimness that's become increasingly usual since his return to Shin Makoku . . . was it truly only a year ago? Unobserved, he walks over to a shelf, lifts a small scroll off the top of a thick book, and brings it to the table at the center of the room for a re-read, hoping to see something he missed the first time. 

The report is written on delicate, translucent onionskin parchment, nearly weightless and suitable for being carried by pigeons even in sheets the size of Earth letter paper. The writing on it is tiny and cramped, but not unclear for all that. Josak Gurrier has had a lot of practice packing information into confined spaces. Reading the report again coaxes no new meaning out of it, however. Renegade Mazoku, another assassination attempt, remnants of the White Crow, Adelbert von Grantz, and possibly another Originator. 

It's four days old and there has been no new word since then, but homing pigeons trained to fly to Shin Makoku can't be common in Cimaron, and Josak took only two. Most likely, he is saving the second either for an emergency, or to send word that they are returning home. More substantial report packets will be on their way via one of the neutral countries, but they may take weeks or even months to arrive. And the planned route of the travelers does not intersect the locations of any known Alliance spies north of Welford, who might have birds of their own. 

Murata will just have to wait for more news, along with Gwendal and Günter and an increasingly worried Conrad Weller. Unless he wants to try to tackle Shin'ou, but that would be cheating. No, worse: drawing on the semi-god's powers to help him find out what's going on in Cimaron would mean crossing a line he's drawn for himself. He won't involve Shin'ou unless it looks like something has gone horribly, catastrophically wrong. 

Which it might. Josak's report indicates that the possible new Originator seems to be weaker than the original. However, there is no way of telling whether this means it is weak enough for Shouri to confine or destroy it with only Geneus' dubious assistance. 

Even Yuuri needed Morgif, and the backing of everyone around him. 

Shouri is sensible, though. Most of the time. Or so Murata tells himself. If what's gathering up in northern Cimaron is too much for the elder Shibuya to handle, hopefully he'll have the brains to call for help. He should be able to figure out that if he bites off more than he can chew, the end result will be that Yuuri will confront the same entity _without_ his brother's help, because that's just the way Yuuri is. He never backs down. 

Murata stuffs the report back on the shelf and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to stave off a headache. If there is one thing he truly hates, it's not having enough information to come up with a plan. The older, wiser portions of him counsel patience and the conservation of his energies, but the part that is purely Ken Murata, adolescent human male, has only so much patience to give. 

Maybe pacing isn't such a bad idea after all, in terms of bleeding off excess nervous energy . . . but in the interest of making it at least _look_ like he isn't going as stir-crazy as everyone else, he's going to take a walk instead of wearing one particular strip of carpet bald. 

He knows the halls of the castle perfectly—after all, he remembers it being built, and except for a few additions here and there, the layout hasn't changed much—so he feels it's safe to let his feet decide where to go while he once more picks through what he knows (and, more disturbingly, what he doesn't know and has never been able to find out) about the Originators. The texture of the floor under his feet changes from carpet, to stone, to wood, and back to carpet again. It isn't until he turns a corner and the hallway is flooded with light that he realizes where his feet have borne him. 

The ancient portraits of Shin'ou and the original Great Sage are displayed prominently in a much more traveled area of the castle, but the official depictions of Shin'ou's successors have come to be housed in this out-of-the-way hall, where hardly anyone ever sees them. Or smells them, although thankfully the scent of bearbee feces is faded with age. That may change when the current Maoh's official portrait is painted and brought to hang beside the rest, but Murata doubts that will happen until Shibuya has fully matured and his body has entered arrest. No one wants to be remembered for the next several thousand years as a naive, wide-eyed kid. 

He walks slowly down the line, not needing the plaques below each painting to identify the subjects to him. Whether they chose to be painted alone or with family, friends or pets, their poses and expressions, what clothing they were wearing, and even whether the artist used bearbee paint or oils . . . it all says something about the personality of each former Maoh. 

Take Martha von Radford, for instance. Her image is dressed in a formal black jacket and trousers cut in a spare, masculine style, her blonde hair is tied severely back, and she wears no jewelry except for a gold finger ring set with a dark gem . . . but her head is tilted upward, and she smiles eternally at the petite, slightly pregnant woman in the green gown who stands beside her chair. Martha's appointment was a surprise at the time—a minor cousin of the then-current head of the family, her maryoku strong, but not exceptional. Then, three years later, a plague swept through Shin Makoku, and everyone suddenly understood why Shin'ou had wanted a Maoh whose wife was a healer specializing in epidemology. 

While Shin'ou has never been particularly interested in distributing the honours evenly, all ten Great Families have at least one representative here, as do several of the minor noble houses. In terms of regnal years, the volatile von Bielefelts have probably provided the least service, since there is only one of them depicted here, and he didn't keep the throne for long before being killed in a battle with the Cimaronese. 

The smell of bearbee paint becomes thicker as Murata approaches the far end of the hall, but he forces himself onward, holding his nose, because there is one specific painting that he wants another look at, and it's around two-thirds of the way in. 

He slows as he passes the painting of the seventeenth Maoh and his thirty cats, shaking his head as he remembers the rumours that the tyrannical man had all but held the unfortunate portrait artist hostage until he accurately depicted each individual animal. He cannot confirm whether or not the stories were true, for the Great Sage spent most of that reign on Earth, except for one brief incarnation in a fishing village on the far side of Cimaron. He didn't even make it to puberty in that lifetime before succumbing to an infected cut from a filleting knife. 

He stops in front of the next portrait, and this time he does read the plaque: _Manfred von Wincott, the Sea Fang, Eighteenth Maoh of Shin Makoku._

Manfred had chosen to be painted alone, leaning against the railing of a balcony overlooking the ocean. Unlike so many of the other Maohs, his image wears blue and not formal black—suggesting a bit of vanity, since black wouldn't have looked good against his heavy tan. His hair is pale, the colour of sea foam, and he wears it very long, in a single braid which is looped around his arm, the end dangling beside the hilt of a sword which is not Morgif. For jewelry, he has one platinum loop earring and a heavy necklace made of the ivory fangs of the sea serpent he had killed in the Strait of Storms, some thirty years after assuming the throne, thus reopening that important passage to merchant shipping. 

Murata doesn't know whether Manfred von Wincott was a good Maoh or not. The histories say that he was, but he and the Great Sage's then-current incarnation met only once, briefly, on the deck of a pirate ship. 

Although otherwise talented, the artist hadn't managed to capture the true appearance of those stormy grey eyes. Murata remembers _them_ very well indeed, and the expressions in them that otherwise didn't cross the man's face. Satisfaction. Confusion. Horror. All within the space of a few moments. 

Murata does tend to remember his executions, unfortunately. There's just something about being cut down in a premeditated and expected way that makes it stick with you, and the incident with Manfred tends to figure prominently in his nightmares. Not because the person he'd been then hadn't deserved it—he'd been a pirate and an unashamed killer, and the few other scraps of memory Murata retains from him are really kind of sickening—but because of Manfred. The stormy grey eyes, and the way the Maoh reached out at one point as though to halt the hanging. The horrified look. And all of it reserved for one pirate in particular. 

It was almost as though Manfred suspected what he was. But how? And why? It isn't as though he can ask about that now. Oh, he can just hear himself saying it: _Tell me, Shibuya's-big-brother, do you remember that time, about, oh, twelve hundred years ago, that a former incarnation of you had a former incarnation of me executed?_ He sighs, still looking up at the portrait. It took him months after meeting Shouri to figure out why the man felt familiar, and even now he isn't a hundred percent sure that he's right . . . although it does make sense. Shin'ou has to have expended some effort on cultivating Shouri's soul, since it had been more important in the plan to destroy the Originator than even Celi's sons, the Keys. Although the part of the plan involving it never needed to be put into motion. 

So the soul that had been Manfred von Wincott eventually became Shouri Shibuya . . . but to Murata, it still feels as though a piece is missing. Somehow, with one glance, Manfred recognized him, recognized his soul, but for the life of him, he cannot figure out where they might have met before. The most obvious suspects are the people he has tried to reveal the truth of himself to, over the years, and the people he knew in that long-ago first incarnation, but he's gone over as many of them as he can remember and none seem to match. Erhart, Lawrence, Sigbert, Rufus, Christel . . . Shouri doesn't really feel like any of them, and yet for such a shadow-memory to persist after so many years, so many other lives, his soul's involvement with the Great Sage must have been intense. 

There are so many little things about Shouri. The older youth is one of the few people in Murata's life who isn't completely uninteresting as a verbal sparring partner. He's serious-minded and intelligent and pretty good-looking, and Murata can't help but think that if one of them were a woman, or if he were interested in men in this incarnation, he would find Shouri attractive—so strongly so that it almost feels intentional. 

Intentional? 

Murata stares unseeing at the painting as bits and pieces of memory, knowledge, and conjecture percolate through his mind, gradually forming a picture. 

"Blonde idiot," he mutters out loud. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" 

He rubs his forehead and makes the mistake of inhaling deeply. The scent of bearbee paint almost makes him gag. 

"You and I are going to have to have a talk one of these days," he says, not caring that he's addressing the wrong portrait. It isn't urgent enough for him to bump his way back up to the temple tonight on the back of a horse, in the rain, but they do need to have the conversation sooner or later—had been needing to have it, really, even before he'd figured this out, due to the sum of a lot of little, niggling things. 

_I'm the one who's changed,_ Murata reminds himself as he turns to leave the portrait hall. _He's . . . just stayed the same. And he means well._

Somehow that doesn't make all the niggling little things any better, though.


	17. Chapter 13

Max looked stricken. "Spensport was . . ." 

"A mistake?" came the suggestion as Josak poked his head over the edge of his bunk. The snoring continued, though—I guess it was coming from next door. "Don't even bother trying that one." 

"I was trying to buy time," the would-be assassin said. 

"Time for what?" I asked. 

"Time for Lindi to find that damned sword." Max bit off the word _sword_ and clamped his mouth shut. He might be answering questions, but he pretty obviously wasn't going to volunteer anything. We'd have to pry it out of him. 

There were two obvious questions that led out from what he'd said, so I asked the important one first: "This sword . . . Was it a battered old thing with a hilt and scabbard made from gold-coloured metal? So corroded it couldn't be drawn? And with a tendency to eat maryoku?" 

Our ex-assassin's eyes opened wide, then narrowed. "Do you know where it is?" 

"No. Do _you_ know _what_ it is?" 

Max took a deep breath. "All I know is that everything started to go wrong after the village gave the sword to that man." He hesitated, then added, "Obviously it's magic. I don't know what kind." 

"Advanced houjutsu," Geneus said quietly. "Very powerful even in its depleted state. Using techniques I had never encountered before, nor even seen described—and I have more knowledge of such matters than most." 

"I hadn't realized you analyzed it," I said. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though." Geneus nodded, and I turned my attention back to Max. "What do you mean, 'everything started to go wrong'?" 

"It's complicated." 

"We don't have any appointments to keep today," Josak said. He was sitting up now, with his legs dangling over the edge of his bunk. He also had a serious case of bed-head that made him look like he had cat ears, and I wished fleetingly for a camera, because I knew the image would make Yuuri laugh. 

Max stared at us for several moments. I let him. It was pretty obvious that he was trying to make up his mind whether to unburden himself to us or not, and I wouldn't push things while there was still a chance he'd decide in our favour. 

Bob had taught me about negotiations, about when to press forward and when to pull back and wait, and in a way it made sense that interrogations would use a lot of the same techniques. Both types of interaction were about exchange with a party whose interests weren't aligned with yours, meaning they were also about persuasion. And one of the things I had learned was that it was always easier to get the other guy to take your offer if he thought it was his idea in the first place. 

Finally, Max said, "It was my father, mostly. He started to get a bit odd after the smith took the sword as part of his pay for fixing our wagon—wouldn't shut up about getting the damned thing back—but it was only after they gave it to that wanderer that he really started to get . . . strange. A dangerous kind of strange, if you know what I mean. Flying into rages at the least little thing, when he was normally so calm . . . He beat our dog nearly to death. We thought he was losing his mind." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geneus tense, the barest hint of movement. "And then we started to see the blackness, and we figured out that it was worse. Much worse." 

"Tell us about the blackness," Geneus said. 

Max swallowed. "It was like a cloud, but it stuck close to his skin . . . I don't know how to describe it. Touching it with majutsu was sickening—it made me feel like I wanted to throw up. And the more it spread, the less like himself my father acted. He went from wanting to get the sword back to being terrified of having it anywhere near him. And there was . . . the weather started around then. The clouds, like thunderclouds, but without a hint of rain, always blocking the sun. Crops started to fail, and it was obvious to everyone that the center of it all was our farm." 

"And everyone took it out on you," Josak said. 

"They tried. In the middle of the night, with torches and pitchforks and scythes. Lindi and I thought it was probably best to run away, but Father . . . By that time you couldn't really tell it was him—he just looked like a shadow with red eyes. He went out to meet them. There was some shouting back and forth, and then these _things_ , like empty suits of armour, rose out of the ground . . . I could hear the earth screaming. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still do." Max shivered. "They fought the villagers . . . except that you really couldn't call it a fight. It was more like a slaughter. People I'd known for years, lying on the ground with their bodies in pieces . . ." He gagged and covered his mouth with one hand. 

"It is not necessary that you be more descriptive in that regard," Geneus said. 

"I'm sorry, I know I'm weak, but . . . I didn't grow up in Shin Makoku. I'm a _farmer_ , for Shin'ou's sake, whatever my ancestors may have been. The first time I ever held a real sword was less than two months ago, and I've never actually killed anyone." 

_I have._ The thought flickered involuntarily through my mind. I had killed at least one of our attackers in the field beside the burning carriage that night, and I felt grim satisfaction, rather than revulsion, at that thought. 

I was starting to wonder what this world was turning me into. When I went back to Earth, would I even be able to recognize myself in the mirror? 

Josak scratched his chin. "So how does this get us to you trying to kill people in Spensport?" 

"I told you, I was playing for time, not actually trying to kill anyone! I didn't know if he . . . it . . . the thing that took over my father's mind would be watching or not. I don't know what it's capable of doing." Max hunched his shoulders miserably, and winced. "By Shin'ou, that hurts. It told us . . . the Maoh had to die, and any other double-blacks we found. It didn't seem to be aware that we could recognize it for what it was, and we weren't about to tell it. Lindi thought . . . maybe if we could find the sword it would help, since it seemed to hate it so much." 

There was a moment of silence, during which I reflected that I didn't know what I would do with Seisakoku's damned holy sword now if I had it hanging from my belt. Was killing this new Originator more important than saving Seisakoku? Would it even be any _good_ for that? 

"Huh," Josak said. "Y'know, I just realized that we've probably now solved one of the greater mysteries of recent Shin Makoku history: what happened to Lord Bernhardt von Radford. It's been almost four hundred years since he vanished without a trace, and took his fiancée with him. Guess no one bothered to look for him in Cimaron." 

"You have been searching your memory of the von Radford family tree, I take it," Geneus said. "What else do you know of Lord Bernhardt? And what is his relationship to the current head of the family?" 

"To Lord Otto? Bernhardt was his older brother—if he'd stuck around, he'd be running Radford province now. That makes Max here the heir to the title, I guess, since Lord Otto doesn't have any kids. Lessee . . . Bernhardt would be about five hundred now. Really, if he hadn't disappeared I doubt anyone would remember him, because no one ever seemed to remember anything else _about_ him, if y'know what I mean. Probably an earth-wielder, but even that's pretty much based on the fact people would have noticed if he'd been something else." 

"And the wife?" I asked. 

"I can't even remember her name, much less anything that might be useful. She was from one of the minor noble families in Spitzweg province." 

"She's dead," Max said in a low voice. "My little brother too." 

"I'm sorry," I said. 

"It's all right. It was almost twenty years ago now. I've gotten used to it being just Father and me and my sister." 

That explained who "Lindi" was, which had been my remaining question, but that wasn't the bit that made my ears prick up. _Almost_ twenty years ago? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if the little brother had been blonde, or if they'd found his body, but I didn't. It would have been kind of insensitive, if they _did_ know for sure that he was dead. Let Kathal ask, when he arrived. If he was still coming with Heike, that is. 

And what would Max and Damyen make of each other? _That_ was going to be an interesting meeting. 

"Is your sister still in Shin Makoku?" Geneus asked, leaving me wondering how he'd gotten there with the information we had. 

Max nodded. "We figured that if we were going to make it look good, one of us had to stay and pretend to be trying for the Maoh and the Great Sage while the other came after the two of you." 

I ground my teeth. So Yuuri was _still_ in danger—I'd only led away half of the pursuit. Possibly the more reluctant half. "You realize that people have already _died_ over this, don't you?" 

Max collapsed in on himself even more, which I wouldn't have thought possible. "The attack on your carriage wasn't my idea, or Lindi's—we linked up with some of the people Father had kept contact with in Radford province and they pushed too hard and things just snowballed from there." 

"And the attack on Blood Pledge Castle?" 

"We didn't have anything to do with that at all!" 

"Don't _lie_ to me!" I snapped, putting my hand on the hilt of my sword. 

"I'm not! I . . . I just want this to be over." Our incompetent assassin was actually _crying_ , I realized, tears trickling down into his beard. It was weirdly disturbing. 

"That may be the truth," Geneus said quietly. "If I recall what Lord von Voltaire said about the attackers, those of the men by the coach who were identifiable were mostly from Radford province, as would be expected under the circumstances. Those who were involved in the other attack had nothing in common, geographically or otherwise. We may be seeing the handiwork of whoever stole the sword, taking advantage of this pathetic excuse for a conspiracy to target the Maoh or King Saralegui or both." 

I rubbed my forehead. _Oh, hell. This is bad. This is_ very _bad._ Two disjoint sets of killers running around, and we weren't even sure who the second set was trying to kill. And we still had an Originator to deal with on top of that. 

Back at the beginning of all this, a few hours before Hube's wedding, I'd wondered if this world had a use for me—if there was something important that I could do here. How naive the Shouri who had asked himself that question seemed to me now. Naive and . . . happy. But I couldn't identify anything I would have done differently, other than interposing myself between Geneus and Shin'ou that horrible day. That was the one and only thing that I regretted, that I hadn't stepped forward to defend the extraordinary man who had, even then, been my friend. It was pure luck that I hadn't lost him, that he'd been strong enough, despite his condition, to save himself. 

"Let us return to the sword," that man was now saying. "How did your father come to have it in the first place?" 

"He took it as a trophy, or at least that's what he always _said_. I'm not sure I believe it anymore." 

"Took it from whom?" 

Max took a deep breath. "Give me a moment, okay? I haven't heard that story since I was a little kid." 

Josak snorted. "So he used it as a bedtime story, or something? 'This is how I got my hands on a Shinzoku holy sword?'" 

" _Lieutenant Gurrier._ " 

"Sorry, was there a reason you didn't want him to know what it was?" 

Geneus' sigh sounded . . . rather put-upon. "Yes, but it scarcely matters now." 

"What's a Shinzoku?" 

"We'll tell you the part of the story you're missing later," I said. "For now, we need you to tell us who your father got that sword from." 

"I understand." Max closed his eyes—maybe he wanted to concentrate, or maybe he just didn't want to look at us anymore. "It happened in Shin Makoku, about four hundred years ago. Someone was attacking isolated houses and very small settlements in the coastal parts of von Radford province, and my father was trying to investigate. The raiders made a mistake, and attacked a hamlet near the governor's seat that was larger than it looked from the ocean and had a chain barrier they could use to block off their harbour. The people there closed the harbour and managed to send a signal, and my father took some guardsmen and rode down to save whoever they could." 

Max swallowed visibly. The rest of us waited. 

"It was only one ship," he said slowly. "One ship, twenty or thirty men. Not well-equipped—almost no armour, and more clubs and wood-axes than real weapons. Pretty pathetic for sea-raiders, when you think about it. But one of them was different. He was the one who had the sword, and although he wasn't a very good fighter, he had some kind of magic . . . He killed seven of my father's men, all by himself. In the end, they had to use majutsu to take him down, and . . ." 

Another long pause. I was just about to say something when Max finally resumed. 

"My father always glossed over this part, but when I was small . . . The man who had been his second-in-command during that fight was very loyal, and he followed my parents to Cimaron. He died when I was barely of age, but I can remember him saying that something boiled off the raider leader in the moment of his death. Something dark." 

"Great," Josak said. "Sounds like this is just as bad as it could possibly get." 

"You do not _know_ how bad it could possibly get, Lieutenant Gurrier." Was I the only one who could see how tense Geneus was? The straightness of his back and the compressed line of his mouth and the way he was leaning just slightly forward, poised to act? "It appears that there have been few deaths as yet. If we can keep it that way . . ." Geneus turned to face me. He didn't have to voice his plea—I already knew what he wanted to ask. 

"We have to destroy it, or at least seal it up, as quickly as possible." I wanted to go back to Shin Makoku to check on Yuuri—part of me outright _ached_ to make sure he was okay—but if I forced myself to look at it sensibly, there wasn't much I could do there that Conrad and the others weren't already doing. If I went, I would be going just to scratch my own stupid itch. If I really wanted to _protect_ Yuuri and not just make myself feel better, that meant going north instead, and dealing with this new Originator before he got mixed up with it too. And Geneus . . . I needed to make sure that the world was _not_ about to once again be forced into a war like the one he remembered from four thousand years ago. He didn't deserve to have to live through that again. And then there were all the other people, the ones living near Max's village—people I didn't know personally, but that I could kill anyway if I turned away. 

I didn't know if I could pull this off, but I had to at least try. 

A little of the tension went out of Geneus' shoulders, and he breathed out. It wasn't quite a sigh. "Lieutenant Gurrier. You have one more bird, I believe. I am not in any position to give you orders, but I strongly suggest you send it back with a report now, rather than waiting. The Maoh and his protectors need to know that there is more than one group of attackers. After that, I would suggest you discover what young von Radford has for transportation and equipment, and fill in any gaps in our holdings." 

Max took a deep breath. "Then you're going to . . ." 

"As Shouri said, we need to get the being that appears to have possessed your father under control before it can gain in strength. If we do not, it will threaten far more than a few villages in northern Cimaron." 

"We haven't really done introductions yet, have we?" I said, hoping to lighten the mood. "I'm Shouri Shibuya. This is Geneus, and the big guy dangling over the edge of the bunk there is Josak Gurrier. We're expecting another man to join us here later today, a houjutsu sorcerer named Heike, and possibly some others." 

"Okay, so now that we're all acquainted, have you got a horse with you, Max? 'Cause if we have to buy an extra here, I'm probably gonna hafta get a job at the strip joint down the street to bankroll it." Josak winked. I rolled my eyes. 

"I have a mule—she should be in the stables out back." 

"Great—I'll check on her along with our horses, assuming she's still there. Mind telling me how to recognize her, in case they've got more than one mule crammed in there?" 

"I'll go with you, if you like." Max moved as though to swing his legs over the side of the bed. 

"No, you will _not_ ," Geneus said firmly. "You are staying in that bed until we leave tomorrow." 

" _Please_ tell me I don't have to add a chamberpot to the list of supplies we need," Josak said. 

That led to a series of unpleasant comments about body fluids and also to Josak heading off to harass the desk clerk for a fresh blanket for Max's bed, since the one he'd been lying on was even less clean now than it had been when he'd arrived. Geneus and I split a bit more of that dried fruit, and then settled side-by-side on my bunk for a morning majutsu lesson, while Max laid down again and appeared to doze off. It was a pleasant, peaceful interval that wasn't entirely disrupted even when Josak returned spitting curses. In response to Geneus' enquiring look, he responded only with the comment that it could wait until we got out of here, and sat down to stitch up the tattered edges of one of our horse-blankets. He was surprisingly good at sewing, for a guy with such big hands. 

Heike arrived some time in the middle of the afternoon, with no less than four people in tow. Two were strangers, youngish men whom I assumed had been part of the White Crow. The other two . . . were Kathal and Damyen. 

"This is a dump," Kathal proclaimed upon entering the inn room . . . and really, I couldn't disagree with him. The dim light in the room didn't hide the dirt floor, or the general smell of decay. "It's even worse than the caves." 

Heike sighed. "It's still better than sleeping in the open swamp, although only just." 

"I've slept in worse," Damyen said. "Least the roof here's in one piece, and might actually keep the rain off." Kathal looked stricken. His hand snuck out toward his adoptive brother's shoulder, then jerked back. 

That made me wonder exactly what had happened between the two of them on the way here. Was it just nervousness that was short-circuiting Kathal's instinct to protect and comfort, or had Damyen actually gotten annoyed at him, the way Yuuri so often did with me? Damyen was, after all, far more able to protect himself than my brother would likely ever be. 

Heike walked over to stand beside the rear bunk where Geneus and I were sitting. "Is it safe to talk here?" 

"If you're worried about Max over there—" I nodded toward the bunk where the injured man lay, apparently still asleep. "—don't be. For now, we're on the same side." 

Heike raised both eyebrows, but he also bowed. "As you wish, Shouri-dono." 

It still felt a bit weird to be addressed so respectfully by someone who was clearly older than I was. At home, not even Bob's staff treated me like that. I tried not to show it, though. Hell, Heike might not even know my age—a Mazoku of my appearance could be a hundred or more years old. 

"We were able to pass most of the researchers over the border to Talefas," Heike was saying. "From there, they intend to take ship for Pelor, and travel overland to Svelera. Lord von Grantz has agreed to escort them as far as the Sveleran border, thankfully—Yelena is a good enough commander, but she isn't accustomed to dealing with a group of people who by all rights shouldn't be traveling at all, and she has all the tact of a sheep with a mouthful of manjuu." 

"Will you be joining them there, after we're . . . done?" I asked. 

Heike smiled. "Truth be told, I was considering trying my luck in Shin Makoku. I'm getting a little old for field work, and was hoping to find a place to settle down. I understand that the new Maoh welcomes immigrants without regard for race." 

"Indeed, His Majesty seems to be attempting to return the country to its original ideals," Geneus said. "I only regret that it has taken so long. I should have . . ." He stopped and shook his head, looking troubled. 

Heike seemed to think so too. "Lord Geneus?" 

"Do not concern yourself. Any regret which can only be expunged by forcing history to take a different route is . . . best ignored, I find." 

Nevertheless, I found his hand down among the blankets and squeezed it gently, twining our fingers together. Hoping to offer some comfort. The corner of Geneus' mouth quirked up as I touched him, although he gave no other reaction. He hadn't put his gloves on today, for whatever reason, and I could feel the faint ridge of the scar that ran from the outside of his wrist to the base of his middle finger. From protecting Shin'ou, he'd said. I'd have to ask him for the complete story someday, but doing so when we were poised on the edge of the same kind of danger wasn't appropriate—even Yuuri could have seen that. 

"Whazzit?" 

The innocent word turned everyone's attention to Max, who was blinking and propping himself up on his elbow. At least it was the good one this time—during what had passed for lunch, Geneus had threatened to bandage his other arm to his side so that he would stop straining his shoulder. He glanced around the room and froze, staring at the newcomers. More accurately, staring at Kathal. I raised the hand that wasn't entwined with Geneus' to hide my smile. 

"Who are you?" Max asked slowly, any hint of sleepiness now gone. 

"I might ask the same of you," Kathal said, eyebrows rising. 

"I'm sorry. I . . . It's just . . . You look an awful lot like someone I used to know—someone who was very important to me." 

"Your ex-girlfriend? I hope not." 

Max spluttered. " _No!_ You look like my mother. Or like she would have if she'd been younger and . . . Oh, Shin'ou's beard, I'm not saying this very well, am I?" 

"You can always claim you've still got a bit of a fever," Josak suggested. "The last time I was as far out of it as you were when we found you yesterday, I was hallucinating six-legged chickens on roller skates. And shouting about them in pidgin Ardati, or so the healers told me afterwards." 

"Or possibly just shouting," Geneus said, "given that the Ardati word for 'six-legged chicken on roller skates' is 'a-ah'. The Ardati have some rather peculiar customs," he added in response to my "You have _got_ to be joking!" look. "The initial strain of six-legged chickens were most likely created with houjutsu, but they have been breeding them in the normal way for nearly three thousand years now. However, Ardatia is plagued with small jungle cats which tend to eat ground-bound birds, and the extra legs make the chickens too heavy to fly unless they develop quite a bit of speed first." 

"Thus the roller skates," I muttered. _I think I've been here too long—that almost sounded logical._ Although in a world with dragons and Hell-Paradise Goalas and vegetarian sharks, maybe six-legged chickens weren't such a stretch. It was just the mental image of some poor farmer strapping little teeny roller skates onto all six feet of some unsuspecting chicken that had me on the edge of cracking up. Damyen was probably thinking much the same thing, or he wouldn't have had both hands over his mouth, and his shoulders wouldn't have been shaking. 

"I had wondered about the motif on some of their temples," Heike said. "Is there a similar explanation for the winged squid?" 

"Thankfully, those seem to be entirely imaginary," Geneus said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "And they are jellyfish, not squid. The Ardati consider them the embodiment of their devil." 

"I think my brain just melted and ran out my ears," I muttered. Okay, some jellyfish have nasty poison, but _devils_? "I guess that means you lived in Ardatia, or whatever it's called, at some point . . . ?" I added to Geneus. 

"I was merely a visitor. Twenty-six hundred years ago, when I was a merchant's clerk based in the Southern Coastal League." 

"Mazoku don't live that long," Max said. "The people in Shin Makoku who said you were the Great Sage too—were they _serious_?" 

"Leaving out some really weird complications, yes," I said. 

Max looked as though _his_ brain was melting and running out of his ears. Josak prompted for a round of introductions at that point, either to cover up the silence or give the poor bastard time to recover. The two White Crow types were named Zherus and Zheran, and I promptly forgot which was which—they looked a lot alike, anyway, except for one having slightly darker hair. I found out later that they were cousins, and they emphasized their similarities in order to confuse people. Useful when you're working for a secret society, I guess. Luckily, they both answered to "Zher", or I think they would have driven me nuts by the end of the trip. 

"Kathal Carter, and this is my brother, Damyen." 

Poor Max just blinked. "Your _brother_? But I thought . . . You don't look alike," he finished lamely. 

"I was found abandoned as a child, and Damyen's family adopted me," Kathal explained briefly. "They didn't know I was Mazoku. Neither did I, for that matter." 

"Nineteen years ago?" 

Kathal stiffened. "You cannot _possibly_ be implying that we're related," he said in an ominous tone of voice. 

Max gave him a level look. "Sorry, but it looks like I'm your big brother. I know that's probably a disappointment. I'm nothing special. I don't have any particular skills. I'm not going to push myself on you, but I'll be there if you need help." 

Kathal's anger had dissolved into bewilderment. Whatever kind of family he'd been expecting to find on this trip, Max clearly hadn't been it. 

"Your original name was Otto von Radford, after our uncle. I don't expect you to use it, but I figure you should know. And we have an older sister. She's in Shin Makoku right now." Max swallowed. "Also, our father is still alive, but I . . . don't know for how much longer." 

That just made Kathal look even more bewildered, poor bastard. He withdrew further into himself, sneaking furtive glances at Max, as we explained to the newcomers about what Max had said, and, more importantly, what it _meant_. Damyen, by contrast, didn't seem bothered at all. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and alternated between watching and listening, and playing something like cat's cradle with a length of string, while the rest of us tried to make some kind of plan. 

There wasn't much to discuss, really. I was the only one here who had a hope in hell of dealing with an Originator, even a smallish one, and I'd already volunteered. The rest was pretty straightforward: Max would approach Lord Bernhardt and distract him while the rest of us snuck up on him, using Heike and the Zhers' houjutsu to hide us. Then Josak would attack physically as a further distraction, and Geneus and I would move in for the kill. 

"I'll go with Max," Kathal suddenly offered, just out of the blue. "It would be a better distraction, wouldn't it?" he said in response to our stares. "The missing son suddenly turning up?" 

"It might even be enough to cause Lord Bernhardt to regain his senses for a time," Geneus said. "However, it does leave young Damyen alone to look after the horses." 

"Ah, he's a tough kid," Josak said immediately. "He'll be fine." And he winked at Damyen, who puffed up with pride at the words. 

Kathal, on the other hand, looked stricken. "I had thought he would be going with you . . ." 

Josak shook his head. "No, making sure the horses're still there when we're done is an important job, and Damyen's the best fit for it, 'cause he's really good with them. He'll know how to handle it if something goes wrong. In the worst case, he hides well enough that Shin Makoku's top spy couldn't find him after he took off in Welford." 

"I won't allow it," Kathal said. "Not alone." 

They _both_ wanted to protect Damyen, I realized suddenly. It was just that Josak was doing it intelligently, by giving Damyen a responsibility that would make him _want_ to keep away from the worst of the danger, and Kathal . . . the only way Kathal knew of keeping his little brother safe was to metaphorically wrap him in padding and sit on him. 

Just like I was always trying to do to Yuuri. 

"You don't have the right to stop me," Damyen said. More directly defiant than Yuuri, but it was the same pattern, exactly the same . . . Just watching it was making me feel embarrassed and a little sick. 

_This_ was why Yuuri accepted protection from Conrad and the others, but always tried to brush me off. Power dynamics: Conrad assumed that Yuuri was in charge, at least up to the point where danger became too immediate to ignore. I assumed that _I_ was in charge, and Yuuri should keep away from the least hint of danger because I said so, rather than because he wanted to. Conrad made his arguments from logic, but I always tried to make them from authority. No _wonder_ I had such a hard time getting Yuuri to listen. Bob had _taught_ me all this stuff, so why didn't it ever occur to me to apply it where it was important? 

_Some Maoh-in-training. I'm supposed to be able to handle people. No wonder Shin'ou chose Yuuri and not me._

Somehow I managed not to flinch at the thought. Where had _that_ come from? And all the crap I could suddenly feel festering underneath it . . . Resentment. Feelings of inferiority. Pushing Yuuri around made me feel better about myself because if it had worked, it would have meant that he was _less_ than me in at least one way. 

_I don't want to be like this._

Something gently squeezed my hand, and I felt the subtle internal touch-sensation of someone else's maryoku brushing against mine. _Geneus._ I would have known him in a darkened room, through a brick wall . . . anywhere. I forced myself to turn my head slowly and casually rather than draw attention to myself with a sharp movement, and found him gazing at me in concern. 

Concern that I didn't deserve, really. I had come so close, oh-so-close, to drawing him into a pattern similar to the one I shared with Yuuri. Geneus was more than me in so many things, and I wanted to prove myself superior in at least one way, and I hated myself for that desire. 

He would hate me too, if he ever found out just what kind of filthy, jealous thing I was. 

Geneus raised his free hand, palm out, and I felt air reform itself around us to refract light and damp sound vibrations—a basic form of illusion that he'd been teaching me about this morning. If anyone looked at us, they would see us frozen in this moment, and they wouldn't be able to hear us at all. 

"Shouri, what is wrong?" 

"I . . ." My voice cracked, and to my horror, I felt a tear run down my face. Then another. _Don't look at me, don't look at me . . ._

Geneus turned to face me more fully and reached for my shoulder. I tried to dodge, but he was quicker than I was, and he got his arms around me and pulled me against him. I found myself crying messily into the shoulder of his tunic while one of his arms rested around my waist and his other hand rubbed my shoulders in a gentle circular motion. 

"I hate myself," I whispered. 

"Oh, Shouri . . ." A sigh. "Is it something that you can change?" 

I don't know what I'd been expecting—meaningless reassurances, maybe—and the question brought me up short. "I . . . Yes," I said slowly. "Yes, I suppose it is." 

"Then you will have whatever help I can offer." 

"I don't deserve it." 

"That is not your decision to make. And my experiences suggest that it is not a wise thing to attempt to judge from the inside. All of us have some level of darkness within, but it is rare that we can see enough of another person to evaluate their depths—indeed, even our own are usually veiled to us. Encountering that inner darkness directly can be a tremendous shock, and it usually happens with little warning. I remember, a very long time ago, sitting in a tent so small my head brushed the canvas and listening to the rain pouring down outside, feeling shocked by the realization that Shin'ou had enticed me into caring about the future of this world, and hating him for that—resenting that he had pulled me from the detachment that I had attempted to cultivate. And hating myself for hating him. It took me hours to sort it out in my head, and by that time, mud had soaked through not only the blanket on which I was sitting, but also my trousers. It truly was horrible weather." 

I snorted something that wasn't quite a laugh, relaxing by degrees. _I should have known that he would understand._

"I became lost in the rain afterwards, trying to locate the mess tent. Fortunately, Siegbert found me before I became seriously hypothermic. The whole incident led to a rather forceful discussion in the medical tent during which Shin'ou was almost bashed over the head with a brazier." 

I snorted again, then sniffed, trying not to drip on him too much. "And I'll bet he deserved every bit of it." 

"Siegbert certainly thought he did—I had never heard him raise his voice to anyone before. Shin'ou protested his innocence, but it is true that he was the one who had decided we would camp in the open, rather than continuing on for another hour so that we might have the shelter of the trees in the Long Wood. Although he would never admit it, I believe he misjudged the rain. By the time it cleared up, that meadow rather resembled the area around Fenton, and our healers were irritable from treating hypothermia victims." 

"I'll bet none of that made it into the histories." 

"I fear that we were . . . rather cautious about what we permitted to be recorded about the war. For a number of reasons." 

I squeezed him gently—my turn to try to convey _I understand_ without words. 

"We cannot hide for much longer—I believe that Lieutenant Gurrier has already noticed that something is not quite right." 

"I think I'll be okay now," I said. 

We dismantled our embrace by mutual consent and returned to something resembling our original positions, and Geneus dismissed the illusion. We got flicker-quick glances from both Heike and Josak as reality resumed, but neither of them said anything. 

After supper, we realized we had another problem: nine people in a room with only six beds. Either three people were going to have to sleep on the floor, or some of us were going to have to double up. 

"We've shared a bed often enough before," one of the Zher offered pretty much instantly. "One of these will be a little tight, but we can manage." 

"Damyen—" Kathal began. 

The boy scowled. "I'll stick with the floor. I've made do with worse." 

"Good enough," Josak said, "since it seems like the universe is always conspiring to get Shouri-sama and M'Lord Sage in bed together." 

I flushed and gave him my best glare, but I couldn't deny that it was true. This would be . . . the fourth time? 

It wasn't until we were already crammed into the bunk, with me facing the wall and Geneus' body pressed up against my back, that I was able to ask, "You don't mind, do you? Being stuck with me like this, I mean." 

"Not at all," came the sleepy murmur. "On the contrary, it is . . . somewhat reassuring. Your presence seems to reduce the incidence of certain of my nightmares." 

"I'm glad," I said. _I just wish that . . . No, I'm not even going to think about that._ I didn't need Little Shouri, who was feeling perky again, to stand up and take notice just now. Jerking off with eight other people in the room, one of them a kid I knew was a light sleeper, was the stuff of nightmares in and of itself. 

Even if Geneus and I _had_ been an item, we wouldn't have been able to do more than cuddle under those circumstances. I just wished that there weren't so many obstacles to extending our weirdly intimate relationship into the one area I wanted most. 

At some point, I'd stopped caring what being with him might do to my future—my last shocking internal revelation for the day. I needed him more than I needed a career in Earth politics. In fact, I didn't understand how I'd ever thought I'd be able to face such a future alone.


	18. Chapter 14

Thornacre was barely large enough to be called a town even by this world's standards: six houses and a general store. It did, however, have something it claimed was an inn, and when we arrived there a little after mid-day, the lure of a possible hot meal and a little time out of the incessant cold wind for us and the horses drew us in the direction of a squat fieldstone building, distinguishable from the houses only by the sign hanging out front. 

The innyard had been swept partially clean of snow by the incessant wind, and I grimaced as I saw the rutted frozen mud and dead weeds. I had enough experience with small village inns in Cimaron by that point to realize that the lack of cobblestones probably meant that the inn was the sort of place where you handed the staff your tin camping plate and mug and told them to serve you on those, because their own dishes were probably none too clean. And then you hoped the food didn't poison you. The lure of _warm_ was still pretty strong, though. 

There was a whinny from behind the stack of hay bales (or possibly straw bales—I still wasn't sure what the difference was) at the far end of the yard, and several of our horses answered back. 

Josak frowned. "They're picketing horses outside in this weather? We may not be able to get inside at all, if they're that crowded." 

"Sorry, travelers, but the inn's closed." 

The bow-legged man who emerged from behind the hay-bale wall was shorter than Yuuri. He had straw in the straggle of surviving grey hair around the edges of his head, and didn't look like he'd been sleeping much recently. 

"Why?" Josak asked. "You trying to turn it into a stable?" 

The stablehand, if that's what he was, shook his head. "A hospital, more like. They sent down a troop from the garrison to have a look at that darkness." He gestured toward the western horizon, where a smudge of something dark was just barely visible. "'Bout half of 'em made it back, but they're all pretty battered, and some of 'em aren't right in the head, either. The ones who're in better shape are mostly making do with Franz's barn, but that's too drafty for the worst wounded, so they commandeered the inn, too." 

Geneus and I exchanged glances. I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: _survivors_ and _information_. I nodded slightly. 

"Several of us are houjutsu practitioners. Do you believe they would accept assistance?" Geneus' horse picked that moment to try to sidle out from under him again. He controlled it with a shift of his weight. 

"Maybe, but why would you bother?" 

"To get out of the wind, of course," Josak said with a cheerful grin. "And to find out whether we should turn back or not," he added more soberly. "We were headed for the border, but our business on the other side isn't worth risking our necks over." 

The stranger snorted. "I can tell you that: turn around right now. There ain't been one person who's gotten through to the other side since this started. Or an animal either—even the damned birds go 'round. The army types were the first to make it out at all, and they lost the first squad, the one they sent in alone, then had to fight pretty much all the way back. I don't know what this thing is, but it ain't no joke. A half-dozen of you don't stand a chance, even with houjutsu, and I 'specially wouldn't take a kid into it." 

Damyen scowled. "I can look after myself." 

"We know you can, kiddo," Josak said. Kathal looked as though he'd bitten into something nasty. "Look, d'you think you can find enough space for our horses behind the windbreak? We've been out in this since just past dawn, and they're as grumpy as the rest of us." 

The stableman shrugged. "Two or three of 'em, sure. For the rest, I'd have to move some bales." 

"Then the kid and I can help you out, since we don't have a drop of houjutsu to our names, while the others go inside." 

Another shrug. "Fair 'nough. But if they turn you out again, it ain't my problem, hear?" 

Geneus raised an eyebrow. "Have no fear—we would never expect you to take responsibility for the army." 

"Well, that's okay, then." 

"Do you really think they'll let us pitch in?" I asked Geneus as I handed my horse over to Damyen. " _And_ that they won't find out that most of us are using majutsu and not houjutsu?" 

"If they accept our help, it will be because their own folk are stretched too thin to even think about monitoring us," Geneus said. "At worst, we will have gained a few minutes out of the wind." 

Which, I reflected with a wince as a particularly sharp gust blew down my collar, was no less a plus now than it had been ten minutes ago. It would be nice to be able to feel my ears again. 

It turned out that I should have been more careful of my ears from the start, because stepping inside the inn's heated vestibule made them throb and burn as they thawed. I gritted my teeth and endured as Heike knocked on the inner door. 

It slammed open, and a middle-aged man on the far side barked, "What?!" His face was mottled and ruddy, and the brown-and-mustard of his Cimaronese uniform was extremely unflattering when paired with that kind of complexion. 

"We understand you've got a lot of wounded and could use a few more healers," Heike said. 

The man snorted. "All of you?" 

"We're all houjutsu mages with some knowledge of healing. Geneus-san trained at Vwar," Heike added. 

"Really?" 

"It was long ago, but yes," Geneus said. 

The man looked us over again, and sighed. "All right, I'll take you to Lieutenant Flood. She can decide what to do with you." 

I blinked. _Lieutenant_ Flood? Was it that common a name? At least the "she" meant that it couldn't be the Captain Flood we'd met in Welford, post-demotion. Anyway, there was no way they could have reassigned him that quickly . . . was there? So long as I didn't try to use the "Sholan Smith" alias and left Conrad's uniform in my saddlebags, nothing would happen. 

Would it? 

The sergeant led us through what had been the inn's dining room and was now the main hospital ward, with injured soldiers laid out on the tables and benches. The whole place stank of lye and blood and things I preferred not to think about too much, thanks anyway. Several of the men were so thoroughly swathed in bandages that only their general forms identified them as human. A handful of more-intact soldiers were moving from bed to makeshift bed, giving their fellows water or medicine or just generally checking on them. 

"Coming through!" 

I dodged a man who was carrying a heavy pitcher of water in his undamaged hand, and kicked a bench by accident. The man lying on it screamed, startling me so that I almost fell over on top of him. Geneus steadied me before that could happen, though. 

"Not much of a healer," the sergeant said with a smirk. 

"Shouri has only recently begun his training," Geneus said evenly. "His power and natural ability are considerable, but it will take some time before his skills are equal to them." 

"Huh," the sergeant said, and gave Geneus a long stare, which Geneus met steadily. "Whatever, then." 

Lieutenant Flood had taken over a tiny room at the back of the inn that I think might normally have been where the kitchen staff slept—there were two beds piled one on top of the other off to the side, and I don't mean that they were bunk beds, either. It gave her a couple of square metres of floor space to pace in. And the moment I saw her, I knew she had to be Captain Flood's sister—she had the same nose and jaw and hair, although hers was, if anything, even shorter than his. 

"What's this?" she barked when we darkened her door. It was obvious where her sergeant had gotten his style of greeting from, or maybe vice-versa. 

"Houjutsu healers, or so they say," the sergeant replied. "Dunno if they're any good, but I figured, since they were volunteering . . ." 

"You know that we can't pay you," the lieutenant said, turning to face Heike—I guess she must have thought he was in charge because he looked like he was the oldest, or something, and none of us were about to argue the point. 

"We're in the market for information, not cash," Heike said easily. "Max and Kathal's family have a farm west of here, and by all accounts you're the only ones to get into that area since this started and come out alive . . ." 

I glanced sidelong at the two brothers. Max's expression was unreadable. Kathal was staring at the ground, scowling, with his hand wrapped around his houseki pendant. 

Lieutenant Flood sighed. "If you can help our wounded, I'll let you pepper me with questions from now until next month . . . but I'll tell you right away: don't bother to hope that anyone under those clouds is still alive. It's like hell in there." 

Geneus' mouth was pressed into a thin line, and I had a feeling he could describe firsthand exactly which flavour of hell it was like, but all he said was, "Show us to the worst injured, then. I believe we should start there." 

It was like a nightmare, except that you wake up from nightmares eventually, and this never seemed to end. I shadowed and supported Geneus as he worked over a dozen or more injured soldiers, controlling bleeding and holding bits of flesh and bone in place with my power while he worked on the things that needed someone who actually knew what he was doing. I also did a lot of lifting and supporting and holding down of people who tended to be built like Josak or Adalbert. By the time it was over, I was having a difficult time separating my maryoku-based perceptions from my normal ones, and I was woozy enough to wonder why I thought it was important to tell the difference. For all that, I could tell that I'd actually expended very little power—as Geneus had said after we'd worked together to heal the little girl with the head injury, it was the concentration that took the greatest toll. It made me wonder just how long and how hard Susanna Julia von Wincott had had to work herself in order to drain everything she'd had. 

Josak was the one who eventually caught me by the shoulders, steered me toward an unoccupied bench, and shoved a mug of spiced tea into my hands. A moment later, Geneus sat down beside me, cradling his own mug with a sigh. Heike, opposite me, had his head tilted back and his eyes closed, massaging his temples with one hand. A little further away, Kathal was leaning against Max and coughing, while Damyen watched worriedly. 

"I hope this ends up being worth it," Heike said, not bothering to open his eyes. 

"As do I," Geneus admitted. "But the alternative is to head into the blighted region with no more than my knowledge of . . . precedent . . . to tell us what we will find there. And while that may turn out to be sufficient, it might also be a costly error." 

Heike grimaced, but didn't answer. 

"I got to talking with their sergeant while you guys were busy," Josak said. "It's . . . bad." 

He fell silent, looking at something behind me. I craned my head. Lieutenant Flood was heading straight for us. 

"We have one more patient for you," she said as we all turned to look at her. "I don't know if you can do anything for him, but . . ." 

Geneus sighed again, and set his mug aside. "I will examine him if you wish, but I doubt I will be able to perform another complex intervention today." 

I gulped down the last of my tea, nearly scalding myself, and set my mug aside as well. "I'll come with you." I didn't really want to, but if this . . . patient . . . wasn't in the main room with the rest of them, there had to be something unusual wrong with him, and I needed to know what it was so that I could properly assess what kind of risk we were running here. 

"Thank you," Lieutenant Flood said. "This way, gentlemen." 

To my surprise, she led us out of the inn proper and around the back to a shed. I could hear faint scuffling noises coming from inside, sounding more like an animal trying to dig its way out than any kind of human being. 

Lieutenant Flood swung the door open without bothering to knock, and a few moments later, I saw why: the thing writhing on the floor in a cocoon of rope might have been human once, but it certainly wasn't now. Its skin was the colour of mud, and the face was subtly distorted, as though the jaws had grown larger, in order to accommodate fangs more vicious than human teeth. 

"He was a member of the squad of scouts that went in two weeks before us. We didn't find any of the others," Lieutenant Flood added, "and we only recognized this one by what was left of his uniform. We _need_ whatever information he has." 

I swallowed hard and applied healing to keep from throwing up as the creature snarled wordlessly at us. 

"Unfortunately, there is nothing that I, or anyone else, can do," Geneus said. "I suggest you kill it and put it out of its misery." 

Lieutenant Flood's eyes narrowed. "You didn't even examine him . . . and you said something before about 'precedent' . . . What do you know?" 

"Eavesdropping is not an attractive habit," Geneus said. 

" _Out with it,_ " the lieutenant growled. She looked like she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake. 

Geneus' smile was . . . not amused. "Four thousand years ago, a mysterious dark being or beings destroyed nearly all of the western half of Cimaron, along with most of Caloria and about a third of what later became Shin Makoku, not to mention the smaller nations clustering along their borders. Caloria never recovered, either in area or in population, but that it still exists at all is a testament to the resilience of its people—many other countries were not so fortunate. I cannot be certain, of course, that what we are facing now is the same sort of creature, but the information I am aware of all fits, including that." He nodded toward the man-thing that was trying to squirm its way far enough along the dirt floor to bite at our ankles. "According to what histories remain, armies of such creatures flooded neighboring areas that had not yet fallen under the shadow. Many attempts were made to cure them, using houjutsu and majutsu and common herbs and simple prayer, and all of those things in combination. None had any effect. The conclusion that was eventually reached was that the souls still housed in those bodies had been so distorted by their master that there was nothing left of the men and women they had been." 

Lieutenant Flood gave him another narrow-eyed look. "I've never heard about any of this." 

Geneus raised an eyebrow. "Are you a student of history, then?" He paused briefly, although he clearly didn't expect an answer, and continued, "Much of this has been suppressed. In particular, most of the records that survived in Cimaron were destroyed when the Weller line was ousted from the throne. Belal the First did not want anyone to know that humans and Mazoku had once been allies, even against so dire a threat." 

"Huh. I could have you arrested for treason just for saying that, you know." 

There was that ironic eyebrow again. "I am not a citizen of Big Cimaron, which is a requirement for me to commit treason against it, and I do not think there is any way for you to frame this as espionage. Of course, if you would prefer, we can pretend that this is just a flight of fancy on my part." He gave the lieutenant a shallow bow. 

"Losing half my troop, including our captain and all of our mages, was no 'flight of fancy'," she growled. "Damn and blast! If this is non-material, then we can't . . ." For a moment, her gruff mask cracked, and what I saw in her eyes was naked fear. 

I licked my lips. "If you want to get rid of it, tell us everything you can and let us go on our way without asking any more questions. We're here for it, not for you, and we think we know where the center of it is. If we can attack that, there's a chance." 

The lieutenant regained her composure in an instant and turned her sharp eyes on me. "You two were part of the group my brother ran into in Welford, weren't you? Along with . . . let's see, here . . . the big guy with the orange hair. Who was also on the fake Calorian team during the Great Games last year. Which means that you're probably—" 

"We're here to help," I interrupted firmly. "That's all you need to know." I just hoped she could take a hint. 

A long pause as she looked at me, then at Geneus, clearly sizing us up. Then she shrugged and said, "They say the new Maoh isn't in favour of the wars anyway." 

I shrugged too. "It wouldn't be surprising if he weren't—after all, his mother is human." 

"Huh. Well, I'm glad we understand each other." 

"So am I." _And I'm glad you aren't as stupid as your brother._

"Could you wait for me outside? There's something I need to do here." 

I had a feeling I knew what it was, and I was quite happy to turn around and duck back through the door as the lieutenant drew her sword, staring grimly down at the writhing figure on the ground. A hoarse cry and a gurgle, and it was over. Lieutenant Flood emerged from the building a moment later, her mouth pressed into a thin line that reminded me of Geneus in one of his grim moods. 

"This . . . historical monster of yours," she said. "What killed it?" 

"The Mazoku of that time were able to divide it in four and seal it into what became known as the Forbidden Boxes," Geneus said. "Their leader paid for that act with his life. It remained there, in stasis, until last year, when the current Maoh was able to finish what his predecessor had begun. I believe the . . . associated problems . . . spread to part of Cimaron for a brief time, although it fortunately lacked the time to corrupt many of the living and was forced to rely on its lesser servants." 

Flood paled. " _That_ was what was in . . ." She didn't bother to complete the thought. "I sincerely hope that you're able to deal with our . . . problem, because His Majesty had rather see this realm fall to ruin than ask Shin Makoku for aid." 

Several moments of brooding silence followed that, until I forced myself to break it with, "I don't think we'll be moving on today—I know I'm too tired to be sure I'm not going to fall off my horse, and I wasn't even doing the hard parts. Is there somewhere we can sleep?" 

"All nine of you? Mmph. The hayloft, maybe." 

"That will do," Geneus said. 

It actually turned out not to be too bad—the hayloft, I mean. The hay itself smelled good, was decent insulation if you could keep it from getting into your blankets with you, and someone had done a good job of caulking up the walls of the stable to keep the wind out. I laid my blankets down beside Geneus', even though that made Josak snicker. I doubt he would have believed the truth, which was that I instinctively groped for Geneus with my maryoku whenever I woke in the middle of the night, and if he wasn't close by, that could take a while and leave me unable to get back to sleep. I didn't even know why I was doing it, unless it was some kind of search for reassurance. I had a feeling that I was going to have a hell of a time right after I got back to Earth. 

I would have expected to have trouble getting to sleep, but instead I drifted down into darkness amid the summery smell of the hay. 

_The marketplace was crowded, but it was not due to eagerness for the midsummer celebrations that would be taking place on the morrow. Instead, people were nervous, discomfited by the news and the dark clouds that, although not visible from here, we all knew boiled just beyond the horizon._

_Fragments of conversation drifted to me as I dodged between little knots of folk, keeping my hood well up, for I was still too weak to be certain I could maintain an illusion reliably, and the only dyes I had access to right now would wash away in the rain that I could sense coming in from the west._

_" . . . say the Quelle keep has fallen to the Originators!"_

_"I heard that some scholar who was living at the keep was a Soukoku in disguise, and he betrayed them and opened the gates."_

_"Nah—I heard there was a Soukoku, all right, but he actually_ defended _them. But the curse the black-hairs all carry took the keep down anyway."_

_I wondered what these folk would think if I told them the truth: that I had bled myself so thoroughly of maryoku in my efforts to save Lord Johann Quelle and his tiny independent barony that the illusion I had thought had become second nature to me had fallen away in the middle of a conference of war. Discovering what I was, Johann and his folk had not only cast me from their fortress, but discarded the plan of defense I had nearly convinced them to adopt. And so the keep had fallen because prejudice had caused them to throw away their only chance at survival._

_I had tried—by the spirits, how I had tried to save those fools! And all I had received in return was the opportunity to watch, shivering, from the loft of a tumbledown barn as the Originators' corrupt creations staved in the gates of the keep and tore to pieces people I had considered my friends . . . until they cast me out._

_I would never offer my hand in friendship to anyone again unless I did it in my own guise, and they understood that they were accepting that offer from a Soukoku. I knew that by choosing so, I was condemning myself to die alone . . . but so were we all likely to do, and sooner rather than later. None of us had the strength to withstand the Originators._

_I had scarcely reached my hundredth year, but already any hint of optimism or belief in justice had been burned out of me, charred by the flames of Quelle and a hundred lesser fires that had preceded it. I had not seen another Soukoku in the quarter-century since my mother had died. As far as I knew, I was not only alone, but the last of my kind._

_I had coin enough, but my efforts to purchase what I needed at that market were . . . not entirely successful. Some of the stallkeepers simply would not sell to a man who hid his face. One went so far as to say so, brusquely, aloud. The others merely ignored me. Regardless, I faded back into the crowd rather than permit them a glimpse of my appearance. Perhaps they thought I was some new creation of the Originators. Let them, as long as they did not attempt to engage me in battle. If they did, I would fall almost immediately, since a single fireball would be enough to drain away what little maryoku I had regathered._

_But at least with the openly hostile, I knew where I stood. The one that worried me was the baker. She had taken my coin, weighed it in her hand, and seemed to consider what a concealed face might mean when accompanied by Quelle-minted copper, but said nothing._

_At last, I managed to gather up enough food and rough camping gear that I might be able to sustain myself while I recovered from my recent misadventures. I had set myself a course for the edge of the market square when a stall selling oddments caught my eye . . . well, not the stall itself, truly, but the stack of four books at one end of the counter. Johann Quelle had been kind enough to allow me to leave with my horse and such gear as I could pack on its back, but that had meant leaving behind most of my library, and I felt the loss keenly—far worse since those treasured volumes had no doubt burned with the rest of the keep's gutted interior, fired by its lord to prevent himself and his from being corrupted into the mindless servants of that which they had fought._

_Like a fool, I had gone back to look, hoping against hope that I could rescue someone or even just some_ thing _from that disaster. I had found only bones and ash. Nothing lived between those scarred walls, and nothing of use remained, save a dented iron cookpot and some half-melted masses of silver coin, which I might rework when I had maryoku to spare for nonessential tasks again._

_I had assembled those bones which were intact enough to lift and carry in a pile in the courtyard and built a cairn over them, those who had cast me out and those who had been powerless to stop them and perhaps even those who had killed both all mounded together, anonymous in death. I had found Johann's sword, notched and broken near the tip, among the bones at the foot of the great staircase, and I had thrust it between the stones as a marker before climbing back onto my nervous horse and riding away from that place of death to resume the wandering life that I had hoped had ended forever._

_" . . . you well, young sir?"_

_I shook my head, gently, careful not to dislodge my hood. How long had I been standing there, staring without seeing at a meager stack of four books? "Your pardon," I said to the stallkeeper, a human woman whose age might almost approach my own. "I was lost in thought. How much for these?"_

_"Which one?"_

_"All four." And why not? Take the time to separate that silver I had found and I would have coin enough to last me until world's end, which was drawing so close I would have sworn I felt the breath of the Ending Times ice-cold against the nape of my neck. Best to lose myself in what little pleasure this world had to offer such as I, and chase the future from my thoughts._

_"Ah, well, now, they're of quite some worth—little of the scholars' stock-in-trade comes this way, now that the southerners forbid their ships from entering our harbours. Perhaps I can let them go for—"_

_The figure she named was exorbitant. It was clear that she wanted to haggle, but I was in no mood to indulge her, and paid the asking price with no more argument than a soft sigh. She sighed as well, and turned to wrap my purchases in a piece of sackcloth._

_I leaned against the counter for one last look at the marketplace. Four stalls down, a man paused in loading a cart, and, seeing that I was looking in his direction, smirked and deliberately spat on the ground between us._

_"That Helb's a bad one," the stallkeeper said, the direction of her gaze following mine. "Hates your kind, and for no reason that I've ever seen other than that he's a stupid jealous bastard."_

_I felt ice run down my spine. "My kind?" Surely she could not have gotten a clear enough look at me under my hood to be able to tell just how dark my eyes and hair were . . ._

_"The long-lived—Mazoku, if you prefer," she said, and I almost went limp with relief. "Even with your face hidden, your hands and your build and that beardless chin make it clear what you are. Even as a maid, I never had skin half so fine." She cackled a laugh. "Fact is, you don't have to hide yourself here. 'Cept for Helb, we're all fine with you lot. Used to have a healer, a couple of villages over, in better times than these, and we still remember her fondly."_

_She seemed about to say something else, but at that moment there was a commotion over by the nearest entrance to the square, and we both turned to look._

_There were four of them, dressed in crude armour that appeared to have been cobbled together from a variety of sources. They did have surcoats flung on overtop, but I didn't recognize the colours, and so couldn't tell whom, if anyone, they served. And all of them were Mazoku, which I didn't like at all._

_I would have liked to flee, but I knew any rapid movement would draw attention to me, especially when everyone else had stopped to stare at the strangers, so I forced myself to remain where I was as the tallest of the men climbed up on someone's cart and cupped his hands around his mouth to aid in projecting his voice._

_"Hoy! All of you folk! Our master wishes to speak to the Soukoku who was at Quelle Keep! There's a reward in store for anyone who has information leading to his whereabouts!"_

_I flinched. The old woman gave me a thoughtful glance, but said nothing. It was a much younger woman, slightly pregnant, who called back, "Hasn't the poor bastard suffered enough already? What good will it do to string him up now?"_

_"I said my lord wishes to_ talk _to him, not hang him," came the immediate reply. "We found a survivor from Quelle, and he said that if they'd implemented the Soukoku's plan, the keep might have been saved . . . My lord is hoping that he might agree to work with us."_

_I wanted to laugh, but that, too, would have drawn attention._ Too little, and too late . . . _Or was it? Whoever their lord was, he knew . . . and yet he was still considering . . ._

_I took a deep breath, and withdrew several more coppers from the pouch in my pocket, then turned to the old woman and spread the money out on the counter so that she could see it. "They will canvas the stalls," I said. "When they reach this point, please tell them that if their lord truly wishes such a conversation, he should come alone to the hills north of the Red River, and the offer will remain open for the next three days."_

_She nodded, and I lifted my hand from the money. "Good luck, young man," she said as I slipped past her stall and into an alleyway which, although the ground was thick with muck, was at least empty of soldiers._

_If their lord truly wished my aid, and sought me out . . . well, we would see whether he had fire enough in him to draw me back out into the world._

It wasn't the dream itself that left me staring up a ceiling invisible in the darkness, unable to get back to sleep, but the memory _inside_ the dream: the devastated Quelle Keep, little bones making tiny, crisp sounds as they disintegrated into powder in my hands, finding the small skulls of three children together in what had been a closet and suffering through the memory-in-memory-in-dream of them alive, tearing through the dining hall during a meal as they played tag. The pregnant cat, curled protectively around kittens who would never, now, be born. Horses, dead in their stalls. 

"I already knew what was at stake," I muttered into the darkness. "I didn't need _that_." 

"Shouri? You should not be awake." 

I grimaced. "Just another nightmare. You know how it is." 

"Your own nightmare, or did your dream-seals fail?" He seemed to get the answer from the quality of my silence, somehow, because he added. "That has not happened since Welford. A moment." Majutsu brushed against me like a butterfly's wing, and I heard his breath hitch. Then he sighed. "Your seals were tampered with." 

" _What?_ " Something small and hard bounced off the top of my head. "Ow! Hey!" 

"Keep it down, you two . . . rest of us're tryin' to sleep . . . mmph . . ." Josak's comment disintegrated into a thick-sounding snore while I rubbed my bruise. 

"Do not fear," Geneus murmured. "It is not our Originator. I recognize this power all too well, and it belongs to someone who _should_ know better." 

"And who happens to be blonde," I guessed, based on the tone of voice. 

"Yes. He was most likely testing the strength of your motivation . . . _quite_ unnecessarily." Somehow, Geneus could make even a near-whisper sound distinctly acidic. 

"He thinks I would _run away_?" 

"He is not certain how you will be affected by danger to yourself, rather than to those you desire to protect. He was a better judge of people than that, in the old days. One might almost wonder if he is becoming senile." 

I snorted—softly, so as not to wake Josak again. "Is that even possible?" 

"I have no idea. Shin'ou's current existence is . . . unique." A long pause, then, "I should apologize to you. These hellish fragments of my memory were not something I ever wanted to give you." 

"I don't really mind that much." Which was true—in a weird way, it even made things easier. There was so much I wanted to know about him, and didn't dare to ask for fear of hurting him. "Although I wish for your sake that you could have _good_ dreams sometimes." 

I could see his smile in my mind's eye, even if it was too dark for it to actually be visible. "The next time I do, I will see if I can share them with you. But in the meanwhile, we both need our rest. Should I spell you back to sleep?" 

I bit back the reflexive _no_ and forced myself to think about it. Swallowed my dignity. " . . . Yeah." I had a feeling that if I closed my eyes, I would end up seeing Quelle Keep again. I'd been using the mental sleight-of-hand tactics I'd developed for dealing with difficult exams to avoid thinking about what I was going to have to do tomorrow, but those tricks could only deal with so much anxiety, and the dream had tipped me over the edge. 

"Comfortable?" 

"Mmhm." 

A whisper of wind majutsu wrapped itself around me and guided me gently down into the dark.


	19. Chapter 15

"This is as far as I can take you," Lieutenant Flood said. "Good luck. We'll look after the boy until you get back." 

"I can look after myself," Damyen said firmly. Kathal winced, but to all appearances, _he_ was the one who was having trouble taking care of himself. He really had been using houjutsu to heal those soldiers yesterday, and as a result, his cough had started up again. He'd wrapped himself in a blanket over his winter clothes, and still looked thoroughly miserable. 

"I can look after myself," Damyen repeated, "and I'm not going back. Josak-san said it before: you're going to need someone to hold the horses." 

Kathal gave Josak a murderous look. Josak shrugged and said, "I did say that, but that was back when we didn't know this had spread so far." He nodded at the countryside ahead. A short distance from where we had pulled up, black clouds loured above, plunging everything into twilight despite the bright sun. "I thought we were gonna be able to get close enough to leave you on the outside. If you go in there . . . well, no matter how good you are at hiding, it may still be able to see you." 

Heike snorted. "I had a feeling this was going to happen. Here, brat." He tossed something to Damyen, who snatched the small object out of the air before I could get a good look at it. "It should hide you from any kind of attempted probe, houjutsu _or_ majutsu, for around a day and a half. _Only_ you, mind, and you'll need to keep it next to your skin." 

"Thanks! I'll be sure to look after it." Damyen gave his brother a cheeky grin as he slipped the object inside his shirt. 

"Master Heike . . . why?" Kathal looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. 

Heike sighed. "Because he's growing up. Just like you did after you first came to us. And you need to let him do it." 

"I didn't need _this_ either, you blonde idiot," I muttered to my horse's mane. "I've already figured it out, and I'll apologize to Yuuri when I get back. You don't have to lay it on so thick." When I looked up again, Geneus was gazing at me with amusement. I wasn't sure whether that meant he agreed with me or not. 

"If that's settled, I still have duties to get back to," Lieutenant Flood said. "And I still wish you luck." 

She turned her horse back towards Thornacre. It seemed just as eager as she was to get out of there, and took off at a brisk trot. 

It wasn't until she disappeared 'round a bend in the road that Max cleared his throat. "Well, then, we'll go on ahead, just like we planned." 

"You've got everything you're supposed to take with you, right?" Josak asked. 

Kathal rolled his eyes. "Yes, mother." 

"Kathal has the crystals," Max responded more seriously. 

"All of them?" Heike asked sharply. 

"I've never carried houseki on me before," Max said. "I can't start now, when there's so much riding on that thing that's got Da not noticing anything odd. But it would be normal for a houjutsu sorcerer to be carrying any number of them, especially if he were going into an uncertain situation. It'll be fine. Besides, I thought you trusted him more than me." 

"I know him better than you," Heike replied. "That's why I don't entirely trust him. Some of the scrapes he used to get into . . ." 

Kathal flushed and muttered something rude. 

" . . . Probably have nothing on the ones _I_ used to get into," Max replied firmly. "I'm not worried—or at least, not about _Kathal_ screwing up. You shouldn't be either." 

_Which means that you're worried about_ you _screwing up,_ I thought, but if no one else was going to say it, I wouldn't either. 

"We'll see you in a couple of hours," Max said, and kicked his horse forward. Heike's hand clenched around the houseki he'd gotten out as soon as we reached the edge of the Originator's realm—if that thing spotted Max and Kathal and then tried to follow their backtrail, it hopefully wouldn't see us. 

I licked my lips. The six of us had to wait now for Max and Kathal to get a good head start, and the tension was thick enough that you could cut it with a knife. "I'm almost tempted to propose a game of hoket, but it would be kind of tough to play cards on horseback." And besides, I really hated the game. 

The corner of Heike's mouth turned up. One of the Zher snorted. 

"Oh, I dunno—I'm up for a game any time," Josak said. "But the kiddo there is a little young to be gambling." He nodded in Damyen's direction. 

Damyen gave him an exaggeratedly wide-eyed look. "A game? Really? Can you teach me how to play, please, sir?" Then he grinned too. "There wasn't a _lot_ of money in it, but it helped when I was seriously short. I could usually bilk them out of enough to buy a couple of meat pies, if I didn't care too much about what _kind_ of meat." 

"Hope they didn't serve you rat," the Zher who hadn't snorted said. 

"Mmh. I don't think so—too much trouble to skin and cut apart, even if you can catch them. I can tell you that dog's real greasy, though, and horse is just the opposite." 

"Had you eaten rat, you would know it," Geneus said. "The flavour is distinctive." 

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Josak said. "Siege?" 

"At least three of them, over the years. I can tell you, however, that rats are far tastier than boiled boots. Fortunately, we never did quite run out of boots, although it was a near thing during that last month at Castrel." 

Damyen wrinkled his nose. "Boots. Ugh. I think I'd rather go hungry." 

"So would I," I said. 

"Wait." Heike turned in his saddle to look at Geneus. "You were at Castrel? Then maybe you know . . ." 

The conversation continued in much that vein. I couldn't say that we _relaxed_ , exactly, but it stopped feeling as though everyone was either going to throw up or bolt back the way we'd come. 

Our fragile good spirits only lasted until we actually had to move on, though. My horse was usually a sensible, almost phlegmatic animal, but I had to squeeze its ribs hard to get it to walk forward into the shadow of the swirling clouds, and Geneus' exploded spectacularly and tried to buck him off. He rode it out, but by the time he had it under control again, the stupid beast had foam flecking its muzzle, and Josak was muttering nasty things about horsemeat stew again. 

The atmosphere in the clouded area was . . . disturbingly familiar. Nothing moved except us. The air was absolutely still, despite the way the clouds overhead swirled in slow circles. There was no snow after the first couple of minutes—actually, it was unseasonably warm, and we all ended up with our coats open at the collar and our gloves and hats stuffed into our pockets. Despite the warmth, though, it was clearly still winter, because there was nothing green or growing at all. Even the pine trees we passed had turned rusty-coloured. 

It was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end and stay there. The silence made it feel like I was wearing earplugs, and the air was thick and smelled faintly foul. I was afraid to reach out with my maryoku—I remembered all too well what the leaky Boxes had felt like, and I knew it would be worse now that I was more conscious of my power—and that made me feel like I'd lost my peripheral vision. It hadn't even taken a week for me to get so used to being able to sense what was going on behind me that I'd begun taking it for granted. 

The mess around Shin'ou's temple last year had been bad, but not like this. This place needed an Ulrike and whatever peculiar qualities the temple itself possessed to cleanse it and get the miasma back under control. _Maybe we should have brought an empty box along, just in case,_ I thought, and snorted softly. I'd seen enough of the trio remaining at the temple to know that they weren't just a bunch of boards someone had slapped together. The Sage had commissioned the originals, so Geneus would know how to make another, but who knew how long it would take? 

No, the fate of the world rested on my ability to destroy this thing. I swallowed. I wasn't going to turn back, but that didn't keep me from being terrified. 

Was this how Yuuri had felt when he'd faced down the corrupted Shin'ou? I . . . didn't think so, somehow. Yuuri had this way of letting his outrage rise over his fear and buoy him along. I just thought too much. 

_Crunch._

My head snapped up. Whatever had made that sound, it hadn't been the horses. _If it turns out that Josak brought along the local equivalent of potato chips, I'm going to hit him._

But no, Josak was peering around into the gloom, and so was everyone else. 

_Crunch._ I thought I saw a flutter of movement through the hedge that divided the road from the field to the left. 

"Ride for your lives!" Geneus snapped just as humanoid figures, armed and armoured, erupted from the hedge. 

The next few moments were like something out of a nightmare. I kicked my horse in the ribs, then had to drop the reins and grab for the edge of the saddle as it bolted down the road. Fortunately, it was happy enough to follow Geneus' fractious mount as it galloped along. Josak and Heike were on either side of me, their mounts matching mine stride for stride, Damyen a fraction behind, between me and Heike, and the Zher brought up the rear. And the things running along behind us were . . . I took one look, and wished I hadn't. They were like the man in the shed at the inn in Thornacre, only more so. The most disturbing part was the _sameness_ of them all, as though what we were now facing had an image in mind of what the perfect servant looked like, and was quite happy to distort anyone it ran into to match it. 

Fields and hedges flickered past on either side of us. There was a bridge over a little stream, where the horses' hooves made hollow thudding sounds, and then we were into another patch of the ubiquitous Cimaronese pine forest—probably someone's woodlot. We rounded a curve, Josak's mount nearly sliding off the road and into a ditch, and then Geneus suddenly yanked his horse's head around and jumped it over a fallen trunk. Mine followed immediately, spinning and lurching so hard it nearly threw me off. 

The ground under the pines was uneven, and I had to duck several times to avoid being swept from the saddle by branches. I burst through the final line of trees only to discover that Geneus had slowed his mount to a sedate walk. 

I untangled the reins from my horse's mane and directed it closer to him. "I take it you think we're safe now." 

A nod. "For the time being. Those creatures are not overly intelligent, and if Heike did his part, their master should have lost track of us when we left their line of sight. Just as well: the horses would not have been able to take much more." 

I grimaced agreement—I could feel my mount's sides heaving like a bellows. "So what do we do now? We can't go back to the road—it's the first place it'll look." 

"We must attempt to reach our destination with a cross-country push," Geneus said. "I believe we have enough information to identify the correct farm . . . and even if we did not, we would only have to seek out the center of the spiral." He gestured toward the slowly spinning cloud-mass above us. "There should be no obstacles in this area that we cannot easily go through, over or around." 

"We'll have to be careful, though," one of the Zher said—everyone had made it out of the woods now, and I was again surrounded by a lump of would-be guards. I tried not to let it irritate me. After all, my survival was vital to making this work . . . and I actually kind of liked the idea of surviving, even if being protected hurt my pride. "The ground over this entire area is riddled with holes. Caves, too. If one of the horses steps in something and breaks a leg, there'll be hell to pay." 

And so the group reorganized itself with Damyen, Geneus and I at the center, and we picked our way across meadowland, through forest, and over fields of dead crops amid the thick air and eerie silence. One of the Zher started to whistle, but broke it off after a few bars when we all winced. And if anyone saw anything they thought might be a hint of movement, we turned and went in the opposite direction, which meant that we followed a zigzag path that drew things out unpleasantly. 

A couple of times, we crossed . . . well, they could have been roads, or farm lanes, or just ruts in the dirt for all I could tell. This world seriously needed some better road-building technology. Asphalt was maybe a bit much to wish for, but there was nothing that should prevent level roadbeds or decent drainage. Hell, the Romans had been able to accomplish that with nothing more than hard work and hand tools, but here, it didn't seem like they made much of an effort except on major trade routes passing through populated areas. Big Cimaron was overdue for a major public-works program, and I was willing to bet that the back roads in Shin Makoku were in a similar state. 

I shook my head. _Do I really need a distraction this badly? Next thing you know, I'm going to be coming up with plans for a sewage treatment plant in Bluehaven. This isn't even my_ job _—it's Yuuri's, or Lanzhil's._ But Lanzhil was an idiot, and I doubted that Yuuri ever thought much about roads or sewage unless his advisors pushed him into it. My brother might be doing his best to be a responsible Maoh, but he was still a kid. And he hadn't taken my Urban Planning elective from last semester. 

Suddenly, Josak, who was in the lead, drew his horse to a stop. 

"What is it?" Heike asked crisply. 

"Hoofprints. Lots of 'em. Someone's been riding through here on a regular basis, back and forth, and I'd bet they've come here at least a few times since the clouds closed in. M'Lord Sage, can those things we ran into ride horses?" 

Geneus shook his head. "I have never known them to. Most animals avoid them. This is likely our quarry, although it is also possible that one of the army mages survived and was able to go to ground. Properly applied, houjutsu can provide some protection from the miasma." 

Everyone looked at me, but I made them wait while I thought it through. 

"We follow the trail," I said at last. "First in the direction away from that—" I gestured at the center of the cloud-spiral. "If it's a survivor, we need to get him out before he turns into one of those things, and if it isn't . . . well, I'd sure like to know what Lord von Radford thinks is so interesting. Maybe we can use it somehow." 

"Alrighty," Josak said, and swung his horse around. "Although . . . would that—" He gestured at the clouds too. "—move along with what's causing it? If not, we might end up in big trouble." 

"It would," Geneus said flatly. It was another one of those times when I really didn't want to know how he knew. 

The trail led into a section of scrubland—mostly thorn bushes, not forest and not much good for pasture, either, unless there was some kind of animal in this world that liked spiky little branches. If any of us had fallen off our horses, the unfortunate person involved would still have been picking prickly things out of his ass a week later. There was a narrow stream trickling through the center of the mess, and the hoofprints criss-crossed it several times, probably because the stream banks were largely thorn-free. 

We left the stream at last at the base of a rocky hill. We hadn't gone very far from it when Josak stopped again, though. 

"Looks like this is where he's been leaving his horse," he said. "He was here not too long ago, too." 

Damyen swung down from his saddle and kicked at a dark lump on the ground. "About three hours," he said. 

"You sure?" one of the Zher asked. 

Damyen gave him a withering look. "If there's one thing I know, it's horseshit." 

I cleared my throat. "Okay, so he left the horse here, whoever 'he' was. Question is, why? It doesn't look like there's anything here." 

"Except for that cave." Josak nodded toward a shadow on the side of the hill. "I think he went in there. Ground's too dry to take footprints, but you can see where the leaves are all scuffed up." 

I took a deep breath, and ended up wrinkling my nose at the smell of three-hour-old horse crap. "All right. Let's have a look." 

We left Damyen and one of the Zher with the horses. I wished I could have volunteered to stay instead. The miasma was bad enough in the open air, and the idea of being in a small, enclosed, _dark_ area with the stuff was . . . well, let's just say that it felt like I was walking into a haunted house, and there's something about the idea of ghosts that makes me really, really, _really_ nervous. I think it's because they're the ultimate sneaks: they don't make noise unless they want to, and you may not be able to see them until they're right on top of you. Not to mention that Japanese legend has a lot of stuff in it about malicious ghosts, and Dad had used to tell me those kinds of stories right before bed—he'd minored in Japanese literature and legend at university, so he knew a _lot_ of them—until Mom caught him and told him to stop. He'd never tortured Yuuri with those, which was no doubt why my little brother thought my reaction to the whole haunted thing was so hilarious. 

Heike and the Zher who was coming with us used houjutsu to conjure small balls of fire to light our way forward. The cave had a low ceiling and drippy-wet walls, and it smelled of mold and filth. More of filth than I'd expected, really. I half expected, as we turned each corner, that I would soon find myself faced with another pile of horse turds. 

Instead, Heike ducked under a low part of the ceiling and nearly ran into a door. He immediately tried the handle. "Locked." 

"Can we get it open?" I asked. 

" _Shooouri._ " The harsh whisper nearly made me wet myself. _Ghost!_ My heart lurched in my chest, and I felt like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt. 

" _Geneus,_ " the voice added, a little more loudly 

Josak's eyes widened. "There's somebody in there." 

"Someone who knows our names," Geneus added grimly. "I cannot imagine any way in which this could be good." 

"Get us past the lock," I said. "I don't care if you need to blow the door off the hinges." 

"I think we can try these first," Josak said, holding up two oddly bent pieces of wire. He pushed past Heike and bent to look through the keyhole. "Just one tumbler, I think. Give me a sec." 

Shin Makoku's top spy wiggled the lockpicks expertly for a moment. We all heard a loud click, and Heike reached for the handle again. 

I gagged as the door swung open. _It smells like a sewer in there! What the hell . . . ?_

Josak went in first. He stopped a few feet past the door, looked around, and said, "Aw, _shit_ ," in a tone I couldn't quite interpret. 

The rest of us crowded through behind him, and I wormed my way past his left shoulder to find out what he was looking at. 

My breath caught in my throat. Thick metal bolts had been driven into the far wall of the cave. From them hung heavy chains, and from the chains . . . hung a person. The figure's matted tumble of hair might once have been blonde, and the tattered shreds of her dress, white, but now they, and her skin, were almost uniformly grey-brown with filth. 

"How far the mighty have fallen," Heike observed. "Lady Alazon, how did you come to be in this condition?" 

Alazon?! But now that I looked more closely . . . yes, she was of the right height and build, and what I could see of her face behind that matted tangle of hair _did_ match . . . 

I snuck a quick look at Geneus. He stood stiffly upright, his expression inscrutable. It struck me as odd, because I'd been expecting . . . I don't know, really. Maybe the same anger and bitterness that overcame him around Murata? His feelings for Alazon had to be awfully mixed. 

"I do not know why I am here." Now that I was listening for it, I could hear Alazon's cadences of speech in that raspy voice, the faint hint of an accent she'd always seemed to have. "I do not know why he brought me here, or what he wants of me, beyond seeing me humiliated. It makes no sense . . . I do not even know who he is." 

"We think it's related to your sword," I said. 

Josak was already on the move, examining the shackles that held her upright against the wall. "These're gonna take a little while—they're a lot more complicated than the lock on the door." 

The Zher who had come with us said, "Maybe we can—" He looked down at the houseki resting in his palm and must have done something with houjutsu, because a thin stream of lightning arced over the surface of the shackles, making Alazon jerk and scream. 

"If those chains were susceptible to houjutsu, she would have freed herself a long time ago," Heike said. The _fool_ at the end was implicit in his tone of voice. 

"You should . . . leave me," Alazon said. 

"Like hell," I snapped. "I wouldn't leave my worst enemy behind in a place like this." 

Alazon raised her head and gave me an odd look. "Such softness is inappropriate for a future Maoh. It will be your undoing one day." 

"Then let it," I said. "It's better than ending up like you. A ruler is supposed to protect, guide, and nurture his people—or hers. I don't think you can do that effectively if you see them as pieces on a gameboard." 

"Compassion is only a weakness if it prevents you from doing what is necessary," Geneus said. "I have yet to see Shouri make that particular mistake . . . but I have frequently seen you make the opposite one." 

"You have clearly forgotten whom you serve." 

Geneus shook his head. "I did lose my way for a time, but I am free of that nightmare now. And I serve Shin Makoku, as I have done since long before you were born." 

"And that results in you being here?" 

Unexpectedly, Geneus smiled. "And that results in my accompanying the man who saved my life on a trip to a nation with which I am far more familiar than he." Alazon took a breath, preparing to say something else, but Geneus overrode her. "I will not be goaded into doing anything I do not wish—not by you. Did you truly think that you were the first in all my lives to use me as you did?" 

"I had expected you to hate me," the much-diminished queen said. 

"That would be granting you a power I do not wish you to have," Geneus said, still smiling. 

At that moment, Josak muttered, "Gotcha!" and there was a clicking noise as one of the manacles came undone. Tears runneled their way through the filth on Alazon's face as she lowered her right arm, although I couldn't have said whether they indicated pain or relief. "Think I've figured 'em out now," Josak added. "We should have you down in just a few more seconds." 

"It is possible to survive humiliation," Geneus continued, eyes still on the Shinzoku woman, as though Josak hadn't spoken. "Even if it is widely disseminated at the time, people do eventually forget, and there is no reason to believe that the details of these events will ever pass beyond those of us here present." 

There was a second click, and Alazon's left arm came down. She slid slowly to a sitting position at the base of the wall with a sigh of relief. 

Geneus' smile faded. "We cannot afford to remain here for long," he said, and, to Alazon, "Can you feel your hands? Move them?" 

"Yes." 

"And your legs?" 

"Are weak, but I believe I could walk if supported." 

Geneus nodded to the Zher. "She will be your charge for the time being." 

"As you wish, Lord Geneus." Give the man credit—he managed to approach Alazon without giving any indication that she smelled bad, help her up, and get his arm around her waist. She leaned on him, head bowed, as we returned along the passage to the surface. 

The horses were gone. 

I think we all stared at the area where they had been for a moment, just refusing to accept what our eyes were telling us. No horses. No Damyen and no other-Zher, either. Lots of fresh horse turds that hadn't been there when we went inside, though, so we hadn't just dropped into a parallel world. 

I forced myself to gather my scattered wits. _Now what?_ The horses weren't likely to have just run, and certainly Damyen and the Zher hadn't. The only conclusion I could come to was that von Radford had found them. Which meant that he knew we were here. And he had hostages. 

I muttered something expressive and multilingual and rubbed my forehead. "No matter what we do from here, we're going to be walking into a trap," I said. 

Geneus nodded grimly. "Heike, have you heard anything at all from Kathal?" 

"Not a thing." 

"Then we must assume that he and Maximillian have been taken as well. We will have to be cautious if we are to get them out alive." 

"Not taken," said a thick-sounding voice. "M'brother was the one who did this." 

Damyen eeled his way up out of a hole under a large boulder even as we watched. He had a massive bruise down one side of his face, and the little finger of his left hand was sticking out at an unnatural angle: broken. 

"It was like he was sleepwalking or something," the boy said, talking out of one side of his mouth as he sat down on a rock not far from the one that had sheltered him. "Not sure if he even recognized me. He saw the horses and just started throwing fire around . . . Zherus tried to fight him, but he wasn't . . . Kathal took him away. I don't know if he was okay or not. I crawled under there—it's some kind of animal den, I think—and he looked for me for a while, then gave up." 

Not the most coherent of stories . . . but I still remembered a Wolfram with glazed-looking eyes of indeterminate colour promising me power and placing a chalice of water in my hands, and I thought I understood in general what must have happened, even if the details were muddy. 

"Possessed," I said, and the word tasted bitter. 

"I thought his will was sufficiently trained to fight it off, despite his physical weakness," Geneus said. "An error in judgement, or perhaps it rendered him unconscious." His hands clenched themselves into fists. 

"We'll just have to persuade it to let him go," I said. "If Yuuri could manage to get Wolfram back, then surely we can . . ." I remembered Wolfram's unmoving body, too, and shook my head to dislodge the image. _That happened because his heart was the key to Hell's Fire in the Frozen Tundra,_ not _because it got its hooks into his mind._ "Don't blame yourself," I added to Geneus. 

"In this case, there is no one else to shoulder the responsibility," came the grim reply. "However, I agree that we have no time to waste on accusations—self- or otherwise. We have some four miles to travel yet, and I would prefer to be done with this before dark." 

There was no mention of turning back. We all knew that we couldn't. If we walked away, even for a day or two, the miasma would spread, and more land would fall under the shadow of the clouds. Not to mention that von Radford might be doing almost anything to our missing allies. We had to push on, and hope that we could beat the Originator despite no longer having the advantage of surprise.


	20. Chapter 16

"What do you think she was doing here?" I asked Geneus. 

We had traveled perhaps three miles on foot, and were taking a break so that the people who were having a hard time keeping the pace could rest a bit: Alazon, whose captivity had left her frail, Damyen, who for all his good will and general toughness still had very short legs . . . and me, the product of a modern Earth city with its generous selection of trains and busses. I was in better physical shape than I'd ever been in my life, but that didn't make me as hardened to foot travel as someone who had grown up in a preindustrial environment. 

"I do not know," came the quiet admission. "And that troubles me." We were a little distance away from the others, just far enough that we'd have to raise our voices a bit to carry on a conversation with them. It was as much privacy as we could afford at the moment. "Questioning her about the sword I could understand, but she says von Radford asked her nothing . . . and yet, he considered her presence here important enough to have her shipped across the sea in chains and to feed her enough to somewhat maintain her health." 

"Some kind of revenge for stealing the sword?" I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense either, though, does it? That thing riding von Radford should be glad the sword's gone." 

"It does have the sense of a personal grudge, but I cannot see what the grudge would be." 

We both looked over to where Alazon was washing herself at a stream . . . and not for the first time, either. She'd gotten rid of the worst of the filth on the first pass, but her hair was still a tangled mess, and I was willing to bet that it would be a long, long time before she _felt_ clean again. And she still looked . . . diminished. 

Geneus sighed. "Her pride was always a fragile thing. Small wonder that she is having a difficult time regaining it." 

"What about her houryoku?" I asked. 

"The shackles were constructed in such a way as to drain it—the reverse of the houjutsu-imbued shackles that are sometimes used on Mazoku, one might say. She will not regain enough power to be useful for several days at least." 

_More dead weight._ Nearly half our party wasn't going to be able to fight when we reached our destination—I included Heike in that, because while, like Damyen, he was tough, he'd been pouring out a stream of houjutsu for hours now. 

That left me, Geneus, Josak, and Zheran, who'd gone off to scout the next few steps of our path. Would he be able to hold it together if we ended up fighting his cousin? I pinched the bridge of my nose in a gesture that was starting to become almost reflexive. 

As though my thoughts had somehow invoked him, there was a bit of crunching and dead-grass-type rustling, and Zheran appeared like a ghost from among the dead pine trees. I sighed and heaved myself to my feet. It was better if he only had to explain things once. 

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we don't have much farther to go: the von Radford farm is just over this next hill. The bad news is that I saw both Max and Kathal moving around the farmyard, and they're clearly not under any kind of restraint." 

"And Zherus?" Heike asked. 

Zheran shook his head. "No sign. That's . . . almost worse," he admitted. "But we knew what the risks were when we decided to join you and Lord Geneus on this. If the worst has happened, my cousin will be proud to have served." 

"He's still alive," I said. "Otherwise, Kathal wouldn't have bothered hauling his body away—he'd just have left him. And while he's alive, we have a chance to save him." 

"I hope you're right, Lord Shouri." 

"The non-combatants will have to stay here," Heike said. "Damyen, I hope we can trust you to look after Lady Alazon." 

The boy nodded firmly. Alazon just looked away from the rest of us. If she'd been able to regain any of her pride, Heike delegating a preadolescent to look after her had probably just shattered it again. 

"As for myself," Heike continued, "I won't have much houjutsu to throw into the fray, but there's nothing wrong with my sword-arm." He touched the hilt of the blade riding at his hip for emphasis. "I'll join Josak and Zheran in dealing with . . . peripheral matters. And in any case, Kathal's still frail enough that I should be able to handle him by sitting on him," he added with a wry smile. 

I took a deep breath. "Let's get this over with so that we can go home," I said. 

Sneaking down the hill to the farmyard was nerve-wracking—I don't think crawling on your hands and knees while trying to hide behind thorn bushes could ever be called _fun_ , but knowing that we were probably being watched made it that much worse. We could have just walked down there in less than half the time, but there was still the off-chance that von Radford didn't know exactly where we were, so we bruised our knees and got thorns tangled in our hair and felt like nervous idiots all the while, or at least I did. 

When we got there, it was just an ordinary farm, like several we'd seen on our journey through the Cimaronese back-country . . . except that, just like everything else under the shadow of the clouds, it was way too quiet. No chickens cawing and scratching in the yard. No goats or sheep or cattle, and especially no farmers. Neat rows of dead veggies in the garden behind the house. It felt like the setting of a horror movie, and I half expected to see zombies or The Thing From Outer Space!!! or something burst out of the barn. 

I told myself that I could handle it, so long as it wasn't ghosts. I wasn't sure I believed me, though. 

We kind of oozed on our stomachs over to a shed and sat down in the narrow space between it and the woodpile. Geneus raised his eyebrows at Zheran, who mouthed _house_ , and pointed. The good news was that we might have a chance of getting there unseen without more slithering, if we moved quickly and there was no one looking out of the second-storey windows. The bad news was . . . well, I hoped we'd already exhausted all the bad news. Enemy territory, hostages, losing the element of surprise, and the near certainty that we were being watched . . . how much worse could it get? 

Really, I should have known better than to ask that question, but "it can always get worse" hadn't yet ingrained itself into my thoughts quite thoroughly enough. 

There was a small open space between the shed and the wall of the house, and we ran across it one at a time, crouched down to keep ourselves from being seen through the ground-floor windows. We were squatting in the shadow of the kitchen entryway when I realized that something felt very, very wrong. 

"Look out!" But I had whispered the words a bit too late: the ground was already erupting. 

What in hell were the dolls made of? Not wood, or metal, or bone . . . actually, from this close up, it looked like some kind of plastic, but that couldn't be, could it? I slammed myself back into the wall of the house in a momentary panic when one of them shot out of the earth right in front of my nose. Then my brain managed to function for a few seconds, and I cut it into small chunks with the razor-edged blades I'd learned to create from the air with my power. That gave me enough space to draw my sword. The dolls weren't exactly master fencers, and Conrad's transferred reflexes took them down easily . . . although not permanently. Majutsu could do that, but I knew I still had to conserve my power at all costs—more than ever, now. 

Josak grabbed me by the arm and shoved me behind him. "Get inside!" The shout nearly blew my eardrums out, because it was still eerily quiet. The dolls didn't yell, or talk, or grunt with effort, or even breathe. They just clicked softly as they moved. 

I scrambled for the door of the farmhouse. Geneus pulled me inside, and the others retreated slowly toward us: Josak first, then Zheran, and finally Heike, who took one look at the kitchen door and said, "This won't hold. I'll stay here." 

I took a deep breath . . . then forced myself to let it out again without saying anything. If we didn't want a hundred dolls hitting us from behind the moment we found von Radford, someone had to stay—if not Heike, then Zheran or Josak. The dolls could only come at him one at a time through the doorway, so if we found von Radford quickly enough, this wouldn't end up being a classic movie-style rear-guard moment. 

"Be careful," I said instead. Heike nodded, and turned so that he was facing out the door. He kicked the first doll in the crotch, and the force of the blow was enough to knock it and the next one coming up behind it flying. 

I forced myself to look around. We really were in the kitchen, a compact space with a cast-iron stove, a lot of cupboards, and a tin sink that had a pump bolted to the side, rather than a proper faucet. The pump was dripping, and the water fell into a dirty bowl that had to have been there for several days at least, judging from the layer of scum on its surface. There was a single door leading onward into the main part of the house . . . well, okay, there was another half-height door beside the stove, but it was open and we could see it led into the pantry. 

Zheran moved swiftly and silently to the door, examined it, and then carefully opened it. The dining room on the other side held an oval wooden table with a scarred surface, a dozen mismatched chairs, more cupboards, more dirty dishes, and another window with patched curtains. Discoloured rectangles on the walls showed where some kind of pictures or other decorations had been taken down at some point in the recent past. The door at the far end of the room was open, showing some kind of hallway. Four doors, I thought, not counting the one we were looking through, and an archway at the far end that gave access to a spiral staircase. 

Trying doors at random got us a sitting room, the bathroom, and a walk-in linen closet. Zheran stopped dead outside the fourth door and put his ear to it. His eyes widened, and he immediately yanked it open. The hinges screamed like an angry two-year-old, and Geneus, Josak, and I all winced, but Zheran didn't seem to notice. Once the noise faded, though, we could hear other, softer noises, moans and rustles as though someone was shifting around. 

Zheran didn't even stop to check for anyone who might be lurking against the wall just inside the door before lunging into the room. Once I got close enough to realize why, I couldn't entirely blame him, though: Zherus was lying in the middle of the floor, bound and gagged and making noises that sounded kind of like the ones Morgif produced. 

Zheran undid the gag immediately, and the moaning ceased. Zherus spat out a wad of cloth, took a couple of deep breaths, and said, "Thanks, cos. That stuff was coming pretty close to choking me." 

"What happened?" I asked, while Zheran sawed away at the ropes holding his cousin's wrists, and Josak, sword in hand, kept an eye on the door. 

"Kathal hit me over the head with a rock," the White Crow operative said wryly. "When I came to, I was here. Didn't see the kid, so I'm hoping he got away." 

"Yeah, he's got a few bruises, and Lord Geneus had to set his finger, but overall he's all right." The ropes around Zherus' wrists parted at last, and Zheran went to work on the ones wrapped around his cousin's lower legs from knee to ankle. 

Geneus, I noted, was frowning. I turned Zherus' statements over in my mind. He might well have been hit over the head with a rock, for all I knew, but he hadn't mentioned fire majutsu or trying to fight back, which meant his story didn't match Damyen's . . . unless he'd considered both of those things unimportant details . . . and if he really had taken a blow to the head, he might be concussed, which might in turn mean his memory was scrambled . . . 

Now that Zherus was sitting up, I could see a patch of his hair that was matted with blood, just behind his ear. That could represent getting hit. Or it could have been staged. Damyen was the only one who might have known, and he wasn't here. Which meant that I couldn't take the risk of bringing Zherus with us. 

"Do you think you can walk?" I asked Zherus as the last cord parted. 

"With help, maybe. I don't have much feeling in my feet right now." 

I swore tiredly. There were three choices, and I liked none of them: leave Zherus where he was, and risk him getting killed if the battle got nasty before he recovered enough to run away; send someone with him, and lose that person's support in the fight; or bring him with us, and risk him pulling a Wolfram at the worst possible moment—if this _wasn't_ a trap, someone would have shown up here by now, unless von Radford had taken his sons on a family outing to . . . to feed the horses or something. _And could we even get Zherus out of the building? He obviously can't leave the way we came in._

Geneus' light touch on my arm made me jump. "I think we must bring him, although I like it no more than you do," he said softly. "If he is tainted, and I agree that he most likely is, better to have him in front of us than at our backs." 

I nodded. "Okay, then. Zheran, can you help your cousin until he gets his feet back under him? We've been here too long already." 

If von Radford and the others were here, they had to be on the second floor. I gave the Zher the unenviable task of going first, up a staircase that was only just wide enough for the two of them together. Geneus and I followed them up, and Josak brought up the rear. 

We ended up in another empty hallway, and I just about ground my teeth. The tension was driving me nuts, and I just wanted this to be _over_ , already. Five doors up here: two on each side and one at the end. We opened them one at a time, starting with the nearest, and found four bedrooms, all smallish and all empty. 

That left the room at the end of the hall. After all the false positives, it was difficult to force myself to sneak carefully up to it—probably pointless too, given the noise we'd made downstairs, but it was always possible that von Radford was slightly deaf. 

Zheran grabbed the door handle while Zherus leaned against the wall behind the door. I nodded, and the door swung open. 

"Good evening, gentlemen. And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?" 

The man seated behind the desk had to be Bernhardt von Radford, since he looked like an older version of Max with less facial hair. It was an easy comparison to make, because Max and Kathal were standing on either side of that desk. The room held no other furniture except a mostly-empty bookshelf and a worn rag rug. 

"You owe it to the fact that someone tried to kill my brother," I said. 

Bernhardt raised an eyebrow. "And you believe I was somehow involved?" 

"We both know you were," I snapped. "And even if you weren't, you would still owe the Maoh an explanation for abandoning your province and your title and taking off for _Cimaron_ , of all places. Has it even occurred to you that you could have been used as a hostage in the last war?" It was bullshit, and I knew it, but at least it was _plausible_ bullshit. I mean, I could have attacked him straight out, but I still had some kind of vague, ill-thought-out hope that it had all been a false alarm. I think we all did . . . except Geneus, who was watching Bernhardt with quiet concentration. 

"I hardly think that Cecilie von Spitzweg, much less her predecessor, would have cared what became of me," Bernhardt said, folding his hands together and resting them on the desktop. "And I doubt the new Maoh even knows my name. I've been gone for a very long time, after all." 

"Without telling anyone why you left," I said. 

Bernhardt smiled. "Oh, I told many people why I left. The only problem was the none of them believed me. It's rather unusual for a man to have such a deep spiritual revelation in the middle of fighting a sea raider." 

Did being invaded by an Originator qualify as a spiritual revelation? Somehow, I managed not to snort derisively. "Your 'spiritual revelation' led you to adopt the simple lifestyle of a backcountry farmer?" 

That unnerving smile never wavered. "Something like that." 

It was Josak who said, "Cut the crap," but I'm sure we were all thinking it. The metallic noise of the big spy's sword clearing its scabbard was loud in the ensuing silence. He put the point under Bernhardt's chin. The grey-haired man didn't move. "Now, you've got a choice: you can come back with us to Shin Makoku under whatever kind of majutsu restraints Shouri-sama and M'Lord Sage can put together, or you can fight, and we'll have it out here." 

"Ah. I had hoped to settle this in a civilized manner, but apparently that won't be possible." 

A dark blur slammed Josak backwards, hard, pushing him into the Zher. All three of them went down. I gathered my maryoku until I glowed with a pale turquoise aura. Bernhardt hadn't moved except to blot away a drop of blood from under his chin with the back of his hand. Kathal, however, was raising an arm that was suddenly coated with darkness. A blood-red light shone from between his fingers, and . . . well, it felt like my stomach turned inside out at the same moment as someone brought an axe down on my head. I swore through gritted teeth and doubled over. 

"Houseki!" Geneus hissed. He had his jaw clenched too, although he'd at least managed to stay upright. "Do not fight it, Shouri—it only makes it worse." 

How was I supposed to _not_ fight it? Great Shin'ou, was this how Wolfram felt when he got too near a bunch of the damned rocks? No wonder he hated them so much! 

Wolfram . . . Fire . . . fire and houjutsu . . . _Wind and water defend themselves by flowing around,_ Geneus had told Kathal. Well, I was supposed to be water. I took as deep a breath as I could with my lungs compressed by my bent-over posture, let it out again, and tried to visualize my maryoku parting around an obstacle. The pain and nausea didn't go away, but they slowly eased until I could straighten up again . . . and discovered that the world was black. Well, mostly black, anyway. The five of us were at the center of a little bubble formed by Zheran, who was now sitting cross-legged on the floor with a glowing houseki of his own in his lap. Outside of that, there was only cloudy darkness. Zherus stood protectively over his cousin, Josak still had his sword drawn even though there was nothing to fight, and Geneus was staring tensely into the dark, his expression strained. 

"We are directly in the middle of our enemy, I think," he said with a glance at me. 

"Why isn't it attacking, then?" I asked. 

"Because it does not need to. It knows that if it waits long enough, we will exhaust our energies and be unable to protect ourselves. We need to find the edge of this . . . or create one." 

He held out his hand to me. The moment I took it, I felt his maryoku blending lightly with mine, almost like a caress on nerves made raw by Kathal's augmented houseki. I let Geneus take control of our combined power, but observed what he was doing as closely as I could. 

The blackness blanketed more than just von Radford's study. Together, we felt our way through it, identifying people and objects: desk and shelves and doors and stairs, von Radford and Max and Kathal, all with more darkness clinging to them. Window and wall and . . . clear, more or less. The taint of the miasma still lay over everything outside, but it was far less intense than the inside of the Originator itself. 

Geneus hooked the edge of the darkness and gave it what felt like a terrific shove back toward von Radford. The edge rolled past us with an odd sucking sound, and suddenly, I could see Bernhardt again. The darkness pulled itself into him and . . . didn't quite vanish. He still had a faint shadowy aura around him, and I thought I caught a hint of a red glow coming from his eyes . . . like the possessed Shin'ou that I remembered so well, but less extreme. 

Suddenly, Kathal began to cough. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and down over his chin, and he sank to his knees, still coughing, his eyes wide and confused. The houseki fell from his hand, losing its glow, and he slowly crumpled in on himself, hugging his chest as though trying to still his spasms. 

A sharply indrawn breath drew my attention to Max, who was staring at his younger brother from the other side of the desk. It was clear that he was fighting whatever hold the Originator had on him, because he was so tense he was almost vibrating, and his eyes were clear, aware . . . and horrified. 

It was Zherus, of all people, who was the first to take advantage of the confusion by leaping over the desk and tackling von Radford . . . or trying to. He was blown back even harder than Josak had been earlier, and hit that damned empty bookshelf with a _crunch_ of breaking bone. Zheran made an inarticulate sound, his houseki guttered out . . . and Geneus yanked suddenly on my maryoku and raised his free hand. The beam of light that shot out blinded me for a moment. When I'd blinked the tears away, von Radford and his desk were nowhere to be seen, and there was a hole in the far wall. 

"Did we get him?" If I'd turned to face Geneus before rather than after voicing the question, I wouldn't even have bothered. The intent way he was staring through the gap told me everything I needed to know. "We need to get down there," I added before anyone could reply, turning to head for the door and the stairs on the other side. I didn't have a chance to take a step before there was a crunch and a roar and the floor crumbled out from under us. 

Geneus leapt at me, and I could feel wind majutsu cushioning us as we fell, tangled together. We still hit the ground uncomfortably hard and rolled a short distance before coming to a stop. 

"This is getting to be a habit," I said as we disentangled ourselves, and got a faint smile in answer. 

"Why can't you traitors just die?" 

The word _traitor_ made Geneus stiffen, eyes narrowing, and I winced. _Hit a sore spot there . . . Not surprising, I guess._ Yuuri might have forgiven him, but Geneus had still attacked the capital of Shin Makoku. 

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply. My left ankle twinged with pain when I put my weight on it, but I didn't think it was seriously damaged, and I'd somehow managed to keep my glasses in place through our tumbling act. I glared at the grey-haired man who was standing with one foot on a chunk of rubble, smoothing his moustache. 

"You're confused about the concept of dying? Perhaps I can demonstrate it for you, then." 

"I have no intention of dying again any time soon," Geneus said. "Nor will I permit you to harm Shouri when my purpose in being here is to protect him." He slammed a globe of light against the ground, and a wave of disturbed earth shot toward Bernhardt von Radford, who did something similar with a globe of darkness. The counterwave clashed with Geneus' attack and annihilated it. 

"You would fight me with my own element? Are you a fool?" 

There was a rumble deep beneath our feet, a tremor too subtle to be called an earthquake, and water began to leak up through the torn dirt of the farmyard. Geneus flashed von Radford a sharklike smile. 

The first water dragon was muddy and dripped solid sludge as I drew it up, so I had it widen the hole to allow me to pull a second, larger one straight out of the water table. Then I sent them both streaming toward the enemy. 

Von Radford frowned, and darkness erupted from his skin, stretching out toward us in long, tentacular strings. I tried to thread my dragons between the tendrils, but there were just too many of them, and my dragons were captured and squeezed until they burst, sending water spraying everywhere and making me stagger as I lost the energies that had been bound up in them. 

They didn't stop at that, though. Several more of the crackling black tentacles shot out directly at me. I dodged, running for one of the sheds—I needed enough cover to give me the chance for a few precious, precious seconds of concentration if I was going to fight back. Behind me, there was a flash of light and a _fwoom!_ as Geneus went on the offensive. If we got out of this in one piece, I was going to have to convince him to do some sparring. I needed to improve my reaction times, to drill everything I now knew into my hindbrain until I could fight without having to stop to _think_. 

I had almost made it to my temporary shelter when something wrapped itself around my leg, yanked me into the air upside-down, and shook me savagely until my brains rattled and my glasses fell off. I cursed, groping for them helplessly, but they were far out of reach. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to close my eyes and reach out with my maryoku instead, despite the sickening, slimy feel of the miasma against my mind. Bernhardt and Geneus were easy to find: one a knot of darkness, the other a brilliant light whose touch warmed me and soothed my nerves. There were others among the rubble of the farmhouse—I recognized Max's solidity and the guttering candle of Kathal's maryoku, but I couldn't separate the others or even tell if, say, Josak had survived the collapse of the building. 

A tendril of darkness wrapped itself roughly around my arms and torso and hauled me upright again, but I didn't need my hands free to use majutsu. The water table was about fifteen meters straight down, and I grabbed for the liquid, yanking it upward through rock and soil . . . or at least I tried to. The ground fought back, tightening and hardening and sliding boulders through what had been loose-packed earth to get in the way of the water. 

Earth was von Radford's element, just as water was mine. It spoke to his instincts, corrupted as they were, and I wasn't strong enough to fight past them. 

Suddenly, a razor-edged wall of wind scythed through the space between von Radford and me, slicing through the shadow tentacles. I fell heavily, landing on my hands and knees amid the mud and the rubble. Almost instantly, familiar gloved hands were helping me to my feet. 

"Are you well?" 

"Yeah," I said. "Physically, at least." I was frustrated, tired, a little scared, and unable to see anything but blurs, but not hurt beyond scrapes and bruises. 

"I suggest—" Geneus broke off in mid-sentence to give me a firm shove. It took me a split second to figure out why, a split second that was almost too long: a tendril of shadow was shooting toward us, and this one wasn't designed to grab, not with that spearlike tip. It had been aimed directly at my heart. 

Now it was headed for Geneus' side, right below the arm. 

He was able to shield himself partially, so it didn't penetrate quite deeply enough to kill him, but I could still feel every centimetre of that filth as it speared his flesh, pushing him against me. He didn't cry out, and if I hadn't been sounding everything around me with my maryoku, I might not even have known what had happened. And then I felt something worse: the darkness was trying to bleed itself into him, to take him as it had taken von Radford, as its earlier cousin had taken Shin'ou. 

Just the idea of that made something inside me snap. _How dare you?! He's_ mine _!_ Rage and terror and I could feel something at the bottom of my mind opening as it had done once before, on a hill near Shin'ou's Temple, allowing massive power to flow through me. I'd fallen into something that was almost a trance state that first time, but this time I was able to . . . to balance my mind on top of it, I guess—not exactly in control, but more _aware_. 

I grabbed the darkness with my mind, pulled it from Geneus' flesh, and ordered the water in his blood, in no uncertain terms, to stay inside him where it belonged. Little motes of energy attached themselves to the wound, spreading over its surface like a liquid bandage. They weren't exactly alive or aware, but at the same time, they held . . . they held . . . I shook my head slightly. Now was _not_ the time to let myself slide down some mental rabbit hole. I had to attack while I had von Radford off-balance. The possessed Mazoku was staring at me with a shocked expression on his face, and I noted in passing that I could see him perfectly even though I wasn't wearing my glasses. At the same time, I could see the shadows winding through him, and the guttering core of light deep inside that they were on the verge of smothering. It was as though my vision and my maryoku sense had merged, together giving me access to a much richer world . . . _Pay attention, Shouri, you're drifting again._

I steadied Geneus with an arm around his waist and raised my free hand, palm cupped outward. " _Come,_ " I whispered. I wasn't quite sure what I was talking to until a flurry of those motes responded, bunching themselves into a ball against the palm of my hand. When it felt like I had enough of them, I sent them shooting outward as spears of light, each aimed at a specific writhing shadow. 

The Originator screamed, a high-pitched, inhuman sound, and it was hard to tell, but I thought it had lost some of its substance. 

" _Get out of him,_ " I ordered, but if anything, it dug its dark substance more deeply into von Radford, enveloping his soul in a curtain of black. I called more motes into my hand. " _You will die regardless—why must you destroy him, too? He has done nothing to harm you._ " 

" _They gave us no aid._ " I knew it was von Radford who spoke, but I heard another voice—a woman's?—overlaying his. " _We called to our cousins for help, and they gave us no aid, no more than did the traitors and cowards who fled! My children's blood is on his hands as much as yours! When they tore my son from my arms and smashed his head against the stones—when they ripped open my daughter's body and left her to bleed out at the base of the fountain—where was he then? Where were_ you _then, traitor?_ " 

"Shouri . . . I do not know how or why, but . . . I think there is a soul at the center of all that." My Sage and my love spoke softly into my ear, breath warm against my skin. "It is the only thing that makes sense. This was a person once." 

A person. A soul trapped in the memory of some nightmare that had twisted it into a monstrous cloud of hate . . . There was a writhing, pulsing knot hovering right above the occluded sphere of von Radford's soul, a knot that sometimes paled and rounded itself a little . . . It _was_ a soul, something on the other side of the opening in my mind told to me, a soul that had died in hatred, in grief, in regret. 

I took a deep breath. " _I am sorry,_ " I said. " _Sorry for everything that you suffered. I would change it if I could. If I can find a way to punish those responsible, I will. You ask where I was then—the answer is that I hadn't even been born. If I had been, I wouldn't have allowed it to happen. And wherever you lived and they died, it was not here. You can't avenge them, or yourself, by killing total strangers and_ their _children._ " 

The soul roiled with greater intensity, but von Radford and his co-walker said nothing. 

" _Please,_ " I said. " _Please, let him go. Let me help you find peace. I give you my word as Maoh that I will do everything I can to set this right._ " 

" _You . . ._ " 

" _The man whose flesh you have stolen has children as well._ " I scrabbled for more arguments—how do you persuade someone who's effectively insane with grief and hatred to do . . . well, anything? " _Two sons and a daughter. Children whom you have forced him to use, to place in harm's way . . . Is that the legacy you want to leave behind? Do you wish to be remembered as a child-killer as well?_ " 

A weird double sound—von Radford groaned, but the woman's voice I heard overlaying his wailed, an inhuman cry whose pitch rose so far it almost faded from hearing. 

" _Perhaps if you let go, their souls will be born to you again in your next life, and you can love them again as you should have had the chance to do the first time, but if you continue like this . . ._ " I forced my mouth shut. I was all out of ideas. Either she would end this or . . . or I'd have to destroy her soul. 

The thought made me ill. Souls were so fragile, so precious, and destroying one was worse than murder. It meant killing, not just one person, but everyone else that soul might have been. I'd tried my best, but if I had to do that . . . would it really matter? 

" _I would like to place my trust in you. If I could. But I still hate them so much . . ._ " The voice sounded as much tired and sad as angry now. 

" _I understand,_ " I told her. " _Let me help . . ._ " 

I lashed out against the blackness one last time, trying to core it like an apple. It didn't exactly work that way, but it cleared away enough of the miasma to let me reach for the soul, cup my mind around it, and lift it away from von Radford. Touching it left me with a headache and a sick, crawling feeling in my stomach, as though I were holding a live houseki. It also gave me a flicker of an image: a woman, young, her face streaked with tears. Her long, dark hair was matted and tangled, her dress torn and hanging half off one shoulder, and there was blood on her hands—maybe on her thighs as well, judging from what little I could see past the rags of her skirt. I thought she might have been Mazoku, but it was impossible to be sure. 

" _Let it go,_ " I told her. " _Let it all go . . ._ " 

I peeled the remaining miasma away in layers, leaving the poor misshapen soul bare, hovering above the cupped palm of my right hand. It was still off-colour, streaked and spotted purple-brown-grey-red, writhing and pulsing—not at all like the white sphere of Geneus' soul, or Shin'ou's. There had to be a way to fix it . . . 

"Channel what healing you can into it, then release it," Geneus said, calm and practical. "A soul must let go of its regrets on its own, Shouri. I should know that, if anyone would. It may take it many incarnations . . . but some things heal only with time and distance." 

I nodded and blinked stinging eyes, calling up my maryoku one more time and letting it flow into her—as much of it as she would accept, at any rate, which wasn't as much as I felt it should have been. Then I lowered my hand to my side and relaxed my power. The soul shimmered, rose, and shot away—not into the sky, but in some direction I had no name for and could only sense with my maryoku, not see with my eyes. 

Someone behind me whistled. "Oh, yeah, you're the boyo's brother alright." 

" _Josak,_ " I muttered. _What's happened to my voice?_ It was recognizable, sure, but there was something about it . . . a subtle resonance . . . I'd sort of noticed it before, but ignored it because other things were so much more urgent. What was going on inside me? I held up a hand, and it was glowing, haloed in turquoise fire so pale it almost looked white . . . and I felt, I _knew_ . . . there were things writhing around in my mind, or in the dark chasm below my mind that had opened up when I'd realized Geneus was in mortal danger. 

"Shouri." Geneus shook me gently, and I turned my head so that I could see him. He looked worried. "Shouri, you cannot sustain this connection indefinitely—not yet, not in human territory. You need to close it down." 

Connection? That weird opening inside me _was_ a connection, I realized, a connection to _them_ , those little motes of light that had bunched in my hand and followed my orders. Within them, collectively, resided the memory of everything anyone had ever done with majutsu. They were . . . they were . . . 

" _Close it,_ " Geneus repeated, and the look in his eyes was one of naked fear. "Shouri, you are on the verge of burning yourself out. You must stop this _now_." 

Burning . . . myself . . . _Oh._ Now I could see it: part of the power to keep the . . . connection, door, whatever it was . . . open was coming from the motes of light, but part of it was also coming from me. They were trying to feed more power back into me so that I could sustain my part of it without needing to really tap my own resources, but it was like trying to drink from a firehose—I just couldn't swallow enough to make a difference. 

" _Shouri!_ " 

I visualized _closing off_ in every way I could think of—shutting a door, filling in a hole, covering an opening with my hand, even turning off a faucet—but nothing seemed to happen. 

" _I can't,_ " I whispered at last. " _It won't stop. I don't know what to do._ " And then, in a little tiny voice, " _Help . . ._ " I could feel whatever I was enmeshed with starting to drag at my mind, tugging me sideways . . . I remembered that feeling. I also remembered giving in to it, trashing Blood Pledge Castle . . . attacking Yuuri. I was afraid, so afraid, of what it would make me do . . . 

Geneus turned to face me more fully. "You need to concentrate on the physical world," he said, somehow keeping his voice even. "On what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears, on what you smell and taste and touch . . . on the world which is not of power, but just _is_." He pulled his braid forward over his shoulder and wove it through my fingers, and I squeezed it as though it were my only support and I was dangling over an abyss. I could smell his scent, too, with the two of us so close, the light musk and something almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike cinnamon that said, uniquely, _Geneus_. I felt the hole inside me constrict slightly, then snap back to its full size again as a sound from behind me made me automatically scan the area for threats. 

Geneus must have known that I had failed, because he cupped his hand against the side of my face, stared deep into my eyes for a moment, and then leaned forward, tilting his head slightly to one side so that our noses wouldn't be squished against each other. 

My mind froze completely for a split second—I'd imagined kissing him, of course, but not like this, not with him aggressively slipping me tongue and running his hand slowly over my face and down the side of my neck, over my shoulder and along my spine until he was cupping my ass, kneading it gently. Then he did something against the roof of my mouth with the tip of that tongue at the same moment as he ground his lower body against mine, and that opening inside me snapped shut as Little Shouri jumped to attention. 

The light around me died, and my vision blurred as I slumped against him, but what I took down with me into the darkness that followed was the taste of him and an immense feeling of satisfaction.


	21. Interlude:  Fault Line

"It's about time," he says, smirking in satisfaction as he watches what is occurring hundreds of miles away. 

"What are you talking about? No, on second thought, judging from that expression, I don't want to know." 

"Don't you?" he asks, reluctantly letting go of the vision and focusing on his immediate surroundings. 

The boy shakes his head. His hand moves automatically to push his glasses back up his nose. If he'd heard about the glasses in advance, the man muses, he would have expected them to bother him more . . . but unless the boy holds his head at just the wrong angle, the lenses magnify the beautiful black eyes behind them, instead of concealing them. 

"I didn't come all the way up here to scold you about the meddling you're doing _now_ , even if you richly deserve it." 

The man raises a blonde brow. "Then why _did_ you come? Usually, you only come looking for me when you think I need to be taken down a peg or two." 

"Shin'ou—" 

"We're alone here right now," he interrupts, leaning casually back against the wall that rims the roof of his temple. "You can use my name." There are a couple of guards up here too—he can sense them easily enough, even if he's facing in the wrong direction to see them—but they're on the far side of the building, well out of earshot. 

" _Shin'ou,_ " the boy repeats with firm emphasis, and the king-turned-god sighs. His Sage always was stubborn. "Just what did you think you were doing when you sculpted Shouri Shibuya's soul? What purpose was he supposed to serve?" 

_Uh-oh._ He plays innocent, knowing that it probably won't work, given who he's talking to. "You know as well as I do what we needed him for. You're the one who _insisted_ that there be a failsafe, and then lied to your friend about it." 

The youth scrubs his hand through unruly black hair. "It was for the best—I think even Shibuya would agree that he would be happier thinking his brother would have ended up dead if he failed, than knowing that Shouri would have become the sacrifice to reseal the Boxes for another couple of thousand years while I scrounged around trying to find a better model of Maoh than the one you developed. And quit trying to change the subject—you _know_ it isn't his role in the plan that I'm talking about. It's the other stuff." 

"Other . . . stuff?" He was so _good_ at playing innocent in the old days. He even fooled his Sage once or twice . . . but not this time, apparently. _Perhaps I'm losing my touch._

"Shin'ou, please. Drop the act. You were trying to build a . . . a _catamite_. For the person I used to be." 

He smiles sunnily. "Are you saying you wouldn't have let him top? Ever?" 

The boy who houses the memory and soul of his old friend _growls_ at him, while simultaneously blushing bright red. "That is _not the point!_ You shaped him . . . for something like _that_ . . . and I'm not even _interested_ in men in this incarnation! How could you _do_ such a thing?! It's like you raped him!" 

He honestly believes . . . but why wouldn't he? Why would he remember something from so long ago, and so peripheral to his own concerns? Shin'ou lets the smile slide from his face. "Believe me, I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't also been the deepest wish of the soul that became Shouri Shibuya. I take it you haven't figured out who he was, originally." 

"Manfred von Wincott. I think." 

"Before that. Long before. Although he may not have made much of an impression on you." 

"Then no, I have no idea." The boy frowns as he admits it. "It has to have been someone from this world—he went from not knowing the language on his first visit to speaking it fluently on his second without seeming to notice the change, so it has to be deeply ingrained in him—but beyond that . . ." 

"He was one of Lawrence's men. I doubt you would remember his name even if I told it to you, but he had the worst crush on you that I had ever seen. You seemed to be . . . unusually oblivious to it." 

"Back then, I didn't think anyone could possibly be interested in a Soukoku," the boy says ruefully. "I didn't count on the crazy vagabond general who recruited me managing to spread his fetish for black hair to an entire _country_. And no, I don't remember any of Lawrence's men having a crush on me . . . but then, it's been four thousand years and my memory isn't anything like perfect. He'd have to have drawn my attention pretty strongly, which I guess he didn't do. I assume he must have been human, if he was one of Lawrence's." 

"One-eighth Mazoku, if I recall correctly—his grandmother was a Calorian, a by-blow of one of the Wincotts. Knowing that gave him a horrible inferiority complex. He was killed about midway through the war, in one of the river battles, wracked with regret because he'd never even spoken to you. And I thought I could kill three birds with one stone: create our failsafe, give him what he'd never dared ask for in that lifetime, and . . . ensure you wouldn't mourn too much." 

The boy blinks at him. "Wait a minute—you thought I would still be hung up on you after _four thousand years_? I always knew you had an ego, but that takes the cake." 

Shin'ou smirks, waggling his eyebrows. "How could you _not_ be hung up on such a devilishly handsome fellow? Although I never expected you to develop such a strong preference for women." 

"I'm still not quite sure myself how that works. In most lives I'm pretty happy with either, but sometimes it's only one or the other, and when that happens I have a hard time performing with anyone who doesn't match my preference." The boy shrugs and smiles, but the smile is false. "Just about everything about my personality seems to vary . . . more than I expected when I did this to myself. I'm really glad that this is going to be the last time. It's like a kind of incarnation roller coaster, and I'm tired of thrill rides. Tired of being a freak. In some ways, this round is the worst of all. Where is a human with maryoku supposed to fit in?—I'm sure that's your fault, too. Ken Murata shouldn't even have been _possible_. And yet . . . here I am." 

It is more raw honesty than the dead king expected, and he stares at the boy, seeing the shadow of another looming behind him . . . two shadows, really, although they've begun to blur together in his mind's eye over the weeks that he has been watching Shouri's party work its way through Big Cimaron. There is very little now that differentiates Geneus from the Sage of four thousand years ago, and soon, Shin'ou suspects, there will be nothing at all, because the man wants so badly to be that person. The clone—if he can truly be called that now—is willing to accept the bitter memories and the weight of responsibility if that is what he needs to do in order to return to a life in which he remembers being happy. Perhaps it's because that pain seems so small in comparison to what Alazon forced him to endure. 

Murata, on the other hand . . . Murata might have led a much happier life if he'd been born without the shadow of the past looming over him. For him, the pain of memory outweighs everything else, and he just wants it to go away, now that he's discharged the promise he made so long ago. 

Ironic that the version of his Sage who had seemed the worse damaged is now pulling himself together again with only a little prodding, while the one who seemed whole is slowly fracturing under the weight of the past . . . and Shin'ou has no idea how to help him. He doubts the boy even wants his help. 

"You could make an elemental pact, forget about your parents being human, and live out your life as a Mazoku," he says, testing. "It isn't as though the biological differences are all that large." 

The boy's smile is like a knife. "No, I can't. I've tried a couple of times now, in secret. The elements won't accept me—I've tried water, wind, earth, _and_ the quadri-elemental pact. I think something inside me isn't quite put together right . . . and if it I could figure out what it was, I'm not sure I'd want to fix it. Really, why would I want to prolong this life? It's the next one that'll finally free me." 

"Are you saying that you want to . . . to end it? Now?" The dead king somehow can't bring himself to speak the word _suicide_ , although they both know that that's what he means, and that the boy is capable of it. He remembers—one of the earliest, ugliest memories of this disembodied life-after-death—a pale face twisted in a rictus of torment and black hair fanned over a pillow, the dregs of the poison spilling from the cup fallen to the floor beside the bed, staining the rich carpet beyond repair . . . 

He is relieved when the youth shakes his head. "I swore that I would never do that again—and even if I hadn't, Shibuya . . . He's trying so hard to be a good Maoh, and he doesn't deserve to have to deal with . . . that." 

_And I did?_ But he squishes the bitterness down into a little ball, stuffs it into a mental cupboard, and firmly slams the door. Letting it out would be exactly the opposite of helpful. 

"You already knew how to handle the loss of a friend," Murata says. "Shibuya . . . hasn't had to go there yet. And I don't want the first time to be because of me." 

"Are you saying you think that's all we were to each other? Friends?" 

"Of course not. But it was a long time ago, wasn't it? And I'm not the same person anymore. I do still consider you a friend, but I wish you would stop looking for your lover's shadow in me. I can't be that to you anymore." 

_Of course not,_ he echoes. Even if the peculiarities of his present state weren't an issue, he isn't a rapist. He was proud of that once—that all of his partners came to him willing. It seems cold comfort now. 

"Maybe Geneus can be . . . whatever it is you need. Biologically, he's now exactly what I was back then, and he's pretty close psychologically too—I'd bet that even his soul, however he got it, is pretty similar to mine. And he doesn't seem to mind being a shadow." Murata has his head turned so that the light reflecting off his glasses hides his eyes. "Of course, you've practically pushed him at Shouri, but knowing you, you'll probably enjoy watching two good-looking double-blacks get it on. Even without imagining yourself in the middle." 

Shin'ou snorts, and thanks the spirits that his body isn't real enough to get an involuntary erection. Certainly the images flashing through his head _should_ cause a reaction even in a dead man—silken black hair spread across his thighs as a tongue licks its way up the underside of his erection, or that same blackness pouring down over pale-skinned shoulders as a familiar cock pushes its way inside him, rubbing against the one already nestled there until all three of them are halfway to madness and he is more stretched than he has ever been before, in life or in death, while eyes like pools of liquid shadow stare into his until he swears they will burn a hole in him . . . or perhaps having one of them at each end would be better, learning the texture and scent and flavour of a new body while he also welcomes home that other, long-beloved one . . . He's been trying _not_ to imagine all those things, because while the images gave him pleasure, it is frustrating to know he can never have any of those things in the real world. 

Four thousand years without sex have given him one hell of a case of blue balls despite his lack of hormones, he reflects wryly. And his expression is giving away more than he intends again, because Murata is smiling that familiar smile and saying, "Pervert—you really _are_ imagining exactly that, aren't you? I guess you really haven't changed. Then again, if you'd changed that much, I guess you wouldn't be the same person either."


	22. Chapter 17

I think I knew he was there even when I was still unconscious. I know that my maryoku was already nestled against his when I opened my eyes on a blurry room and realized that I was lying in an honest-to-goodness _bed_ , and he was sitting beside me, reading a book. I had my fingers laced through his braid again, and I forced myself to loosen my grip, because it couldn't be all that comfortable for him. 

"Welcome back." That soft, familiar voice . . . "You have been unconscious for most of a day. Doubtless you will be happy to know that everyone survived—even Bernhardt von Radford, although as of two hours ago, he had not yet regained consciousness. We are at another farm about a mile and a half from theirs." 

"My glasses?" I wanted to be able to see him— _needed_ to be able to see him. 

"Regrettably, they were smashed. However, it may be possible to simulate their function. If you will permit me an experiment . . ." 

"Sure." 

Geneus cupped my face between his hands so that the tips of his longest fingers rested right at the corners of my eyes. "This may sting a bit," he warned, and it did, for just a moment. My eyes flooded involuntarily with tears, which he gathered and shaped into discs that were thicker at the edge than the center—lenses. Made of salt water. They didn't clear my vision perfectly, but they helped. "You will need to adjust them yourself to improve the results." 

I nodded and carefully slid my own majutsu into place, taking over management of my new contact lenses, tweaking the curvature until the walls of the room came clear. There was sunlight streaming in between the slats of the shuttered window—clearly the clouds were gone. 

I pushed myself up into a sitting position and forced myself to let go of Geneus' braid completely. "I . . . When you . . ." I could feel myself flushing, but he only waited patiently. "I'm sorry you had to kiss me," I finally blurted out. 

Geneus' eyebrows rose. "Why? I certainly do not regret it." 

"But you're in love . . . with Shin'ou . . ." My voice slowly trailed off into nothing as I saw his expression. 

"Is _that_ why you never spoke any word despite your obvious desire? I had thought you were wed in your own world . . . or at least promised . . . but not this." Geneus shook his head slightly. "Shin'ou was my first love, but not my only, and certainly not my last. Furthermore, it would be physically impossible right now for us to take up that relationship again. I am not waiting for him, nor he for me. Truly, I do not know if we would even suit anymore—I am not nearly so innocent in such matters now as I was four thousand years ago, and I do not know if he would have it in him to give me what I now need . . . but I believe that you can." 

Geneus took my hand and, slowly and deliberately, keeping his eyes locked with mine, pressed a kiss to my palm. Then he waited. 

For a moment, I was numb. Shocked. Then it started to penetrate. _He wants me. Not Shin'ou. Me._ I felt like I was walking on air, and I knew I had a wide, goofy grin on my face. I couldn't help it. I felt like everything I'd ever wanted was sitting beside me on that bed, holding my hand. 

"I feel like a fool," I admitted. "We've wasted so much time, because I thought . . ." 

"Not so very much time," Geneus corrected, with a smile. "We have had little privacy on this journey, and in any case, I needed to decide for myself whether I had anything to offer you, when I have been little more than a walking dead man for such a long time . . ." 

"Don't say things like that." 

"Even if they are the truth? You are the one who brought me back to life, Shouri. Beloved." 

It was the clear, burning light in his eyes, as much as his words, that made a shiver run through me. "Kiss me?" The words came out sounding a bit strange, but I wasn't about to take them back. 

"That and more," he murmured, and leaned in. This time he teased my tongue with his own, inviting it into his mouth and then sucking gently on it when I took him up on that invitation. 

"What kind of 'more' did you have in mind?" I asked as we parted. 

The answering smile was wicked. "All kinds. I intend to learn the taste and texture of every inch of your skin . . . to take you into my mouth and my body . . . to see how you look as I prepare you for your first time with a man . . ." His smile widened at the hitch in my breathing. 

"How did you know?" 

"That you have only ever been with women? There has been a certain speculative element in your gaze whenever you have looked at me . . . You do not know what you have been missing, Shouri." 

"I was missing _you_ ," I said softly. "All my life until now, I was waiting to meet you." 

This time it was his breathing that went momentarily ragged, and me that leaned in to steal a kiss, tracing his lower lip with my tongue. When we separated, Geneus closed the book he'd been reading before I woke up and set it aside on the bedside table, revealing a prominent lump under his trousers and tunic. Little Geneus was evidently in good form, and of a pretty good size, too. I felt a hint of wonder that I could do this to a man who was ordinarily so self-possessed around everyone but Murata and Shin'ou. 

Whoever had put me to bed had taken my jacket off as well as my boots, and Geneus lost no time unlacing the front of my shirt and slipping his hand inside. He cupped it over my left nipple, letting the warmth of his palm soak into my flesh as he drew a line of little nipping kisses down the side of my neck. I kissed every part of him that came into range—mostly his forehead, but I wasn't about to be picky under the circumstances—and slid my hand down his braid until I could find the silver band holding it in place and unclasp it, then ran my fingers through his hair until there were swirls and pools of silky midnight black arranged all over the bed and all over us. _I seem to be developing a hair fetish,_ I thought wryly, but I didn't really mind that, either. 

"Beautiful," I whispered huskily. 

A quiet smile. "As are you." 

"Me?" I knew I was good-looking enough—people of Mazoku descent usually are, even on Earth—but I didn't think I was all that special, either. Easy on the eyes, but I wouldn't have made an idol singer or a movie star. 

"Beautiful . . . precious . . . uniquely Shouri." Geneus shifted position, sliding a leg across to straddle me, and rolled his hips, pressing that bulge in his pants against Little Shouri, making me gasp even though there were several layers of clothing and two blankets between us. "Oh, how I want you . . ." 

"You can have me," I said huskily. "As often as you want . . . as many times as you want. Forever." It was . . . almost crazy, I reflected as I heard his breath catch again. Individually, none of the words we'd said here had been anything I couldn't also have said in front of my mother. It was the way we were stringing them together that was creating erotic images inside my mind, of him opening my pants and bending down—and if I kept on thinking about that, I was going to cream the inside of my underwear. 

The front of that long tunic, I discovered, was held shut by hooks. Lots and lots of little tiny hooks, and how he normally fastened and unfastened them so quickly, I really didn't know, because I couldn't seem to make any headway until he joined in. Then the tunic came off fast, leaving Geneus kneeling with his legs on either side of mine, dressed only in his trousers . . . and a bandage. 

I winced and touched it gently. "Your side . . . I'd forgotten . . ." 

"The wound is already closed. The bandage is only a precaution that I will be able to dispense with in a day or two. Because you took such prompt action, the injury was not as serious as it might have been." 

I swallowed. "I could have lost you . . . before we even had a chance to . . ." 

"But you did not—and I promise you that I will do everything I can to keep myself alive. I have no intention of leaving your side until I am well into my dotage." 

That made me laugh. "I somehow can't see you going senile no matter how old you are." My hands slid slowly down his body, tracing the firm muscles of his torso. It really wasn't fair that all this-world Mazoku men seemed to have washboard abs. I was going to have to start working out if I didn't want to develop a lasting inferiority complex . . . but then, Geneus had already seen me naked enough times to know what he was getting, and it was clear that he wanted me anyway. 

The old scar that ran raggedly down from his shoulder had narrowly missed one nipple, and he shivered as I traced its path with my fingers, then with my tongue, enjoying the slight saltiness of his skin. Then I shifted my attentions to the nipple itself, and his fingers tangled themselves in the hair hanging loose about my shoulders—clearly I wasn't the only one with a hair fetish. 

Suddenly, the door opened with a bang. "Hey, is Shouri-sama aw— Oops." 

"There is an exotic custom known as 'knocking', Lieutenant Gurrier. I suggest you consider applying it in the future," Geneus said frostily. 

"Um, yeah. Sorry." Josak scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. I sighed. 

"I'm awake, obviously. What did you want?" 

"Von Radford wants to talk to you. So does Alazon, actually." 

"Tell them I'll be there in a bit." 

Josak carefully closed the door behind himself without saying anything more. 

"Talk about ruining the mood," I said wryly. 

"Indeed—next time, we will need to find a room with a door that locks." 

A shiver ran through me at the thought that there was going to be a next time. And another time after that, hopefully, and another . . . I gave him another kiss, slow and sweet but mostly chaste, in an attempt to derail that train of thought. 

"My boots?" I forced myself to ask, and he nodded in the direction of a chair that had my jacket slung over the back. What I wouldn't have given for a bath and some fresh clothes—while we'd been touching, it hadn't seemed to matter, but it was just about all I could think about as I lifted the stiff and stinking garment from its place and forced myself into it. Geneus shook out his tunic and put it back on, and his boots. Once again, he didn't bother with his gloves, and to be honest I wasn't sure when I'd last seen him wearing them. 

We went downstairs together—we didn't talk, but it also didn't feel like we needed to. We found the others in a large and rather elaborately furnished sitting room. 

Everyone had made it through the collapse of the farmhouse, although not necessarily in one piece: Max's left leg was splinted, and he sat with it propped up on a low table. Kathal looked hollow-cheeked and feverish, but he managed to give us a smile as we sat down together on a sofa. Damyen was perched on the arm of Kathal's chair, which placed him between Max and his adoptive brother. Bernhardt sat facing the trio, watching them with a warm but bemused expression on his face. Heike, beside him, had bandages all up and down his arms, and several more distorting the fabric of his shirt. And the Zher, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder on a window seat, could be told apart at last, because one had bandages all over his chest and shoulder, and the other wore a rakish white turban. 

Alazon sat alone in a wing-backed chair, spine severely straight. She'd found the time and the means to wash her hair, and was wearing a clean gingham dress which had probably belonged to some inhabitant of this farm. The cheerful orange checks and plain cut were utterly wrong on her, and the lack of jewelry made her look older and more severe. The markings on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes were still clearly visible, suggesting that, like Geneus', they were tattoos or birthmarks and not something she created with makeup. I wondered what, if anything, they meant. 

"Shouri-dono," she greeted me quietly. And, "Geneus . . ." 

My love gave her a curt nod. "You wished to speak to us?" he prompted. 

Bernhardt held up a hand. "If I may speak first?" 

Alazon shrugged. "As you wish." She sounded very tired. 

"Thank you." Bernhardt got out of his chair . . . and went down on his knee, bowing his head and nearly hitting his forehead on the coffee table his son was using as a foot-prop. "My lords, I thank you with all my heart for stopping me from doing the unthinkable, and surrender myself to you to be returned to Shin Makoku for judgement before Shin'ou and the Maoh." 

Behind us, Josak whistled softly. 

"You were not at fault," Geneus said. "Even Shin'ou's will was not strong enough to fight what attacked you—not for very long." 

"And even if it had been your fault, Yuuri would forgive you," I added. "My brother . . . doesn't believe in placing blame. Anyway, I can't really arrest you—I'm not a citizen of Shin Makoku, and I don't have any official standing there. Unless someone knows something I don't, we'll have to release you to make your way back there on your own recognizance." 

Bernhardt's head jerked up. "You would trust me to return to Shin Makoku on my own?" 

I shrugged. "Realistically, I don't think you have anywhere else to go now . . . and the reason you left in the first place is gone, isn't it?" 

"Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you, my lord." 

"Get back into your chair, then. I have some questions for you." 

Bernhardt got up off his knees and sat down again. "What would you like to know?" 

"Mostly, how all of this happened. We heard some stuff from Max, but he wasn't there for the earliest parts, and I want to be sure we've put the pieces together correctly. We need to figure out who else is trying to kill my brother, and stop them before they succeed." 

"Someone else is trying—great Shin'ou!" 

"Truth be told, we cannot be certain that the Maoh was the target of that attack," Geneus said. "It may have been aimed at King Saralegui of Small Cimaron, with the attack on the Maoh being incidental. But without more information, we cannot be certain." 

Bernhardt took a deep breath. "I don't know how knowing what happened four hundred years ago will help with any of that, but if you want to know about the beginning, that was when it happened." 

"The sea raider," I said, and Bernhardt nodded. "Did he look like Lady Alazon?" I asked, gesturing in her direction. 

"Ye-es," the Mazoku said slowly. "In colouring, at any rate." 

"And the being we destroyed—did he bear that with him?" Geneus asked. 

"Yes." This time, the reply was not at all hesitant. 

"And you took his sword," I said. "Which Max used as part-payment to the local blacksmith a few months ago, and which you very badly wanted back. Why?" 

"Because that . . . thing . . . hated it. While I had the sword, it . . . slept, most of the time. I think it must have been the same for him—the sea raider. He had such a tormented look on his face when I knocked the blade from his hand . . ." 

"The only chronology of events that makes any sense, then, is thus," Geneus said into the silence that followed. "A Shinzoku became possessed by the Originator we encountered here. Believing for whatever reason that the holy sword might aid him in controlling it, he stole the weapon, then fled the country and turned to piracy and sea-raiding, possibly due to the subtle influence of what he held inside. When he was killed, both of his burdens were transferred to the man who ended his life . . . who then fled Shin Makoku, repeating the pattern. It follows that the Originator we found here came from Seisakoku." 

"Except that I'm pretty sure that she—the soul who formed the Originator's core—was Mazoku while she was still alive," I said. "Or not Shinzoku, anyway. She had dark hair." 

Geneus' gaze snapped to Alazon, who shrugged. "I had never encountered Mazoku as anything other than legends until I left my home. Certainly there are none of your kind there now." 

"And yet, that is where all remaining paths seem to lead," Geneus said. "The sword is there, along with the origin of all of these . . . complications." 

"The sword . . . you are saying it has been returned?" Alazon said. 

Geneus shrugged. "It must be somewhere, and we have eliminated most of the parties at interest. If it is not in Seisakoku, then it must be in Small Cimaron, and while Saralegui is quite capable of staging an attempt on his life in order to get his hands on what he wants, I do not see why he would go to such lengths in this case." 

"After all, he _had_ the sword," I put in. 

"Sara is not—" Alazon began. 

"The acorn does not fall far from the oak," Geneus said. "From what I have seen, Saralegui is very much like his mother." 

Alazon looked stricken at that. 

I rubbed my forehead, trying to remember maps that I'd only looked at in passing. "We're going to have to go south anyway if we're heading back to Shin Makoku. I'm not sure how much of a detour Small Cimaron would be, but it can't be _that_ far out of our way—and it may be to our advantage that Lanzhil and his army aren't expecting us to go there. Up until now, we've pretty much gotten away with murder in that respect, so something's due to go wrong. And if we decide that we need to go to Seisakoku—" Alazon drew in a sharp breath. "—I'd like to talk to Beryes first." 

"You intend to verify everything I say with my brother?" 

"I _intend_ to take advantage of the fact that he would have had a different perspective on your country, due to being male, a trained fighter, and never in charge of the place," I said. "That's all. But I need to talk to Yuuri and his people too . . ." 

Josak grimaced. "I wish I'd brought a third bird now. 'Course, with my luck, I'd've left it behind with the carriage." 

"There is a method by which we may be able to speak to the Maoh directly," Geneus said. "However, I would prefer not to attempt complex majutsu without another day of rest." 

"I have never heard of majutsu being used for communication over distances, or at least, not beyond crude signalling of the sort humans sometimes perform with rockets," Bernhardt said. 

"All water is conceptually connected," Geneus said. "That connection can be used for communication between two strong water-users. Fortunately, only one of them needs to know what he is doing." 

So _that_ was how the world-transit spell worked: by exploiting that connectedness. 

"It's limited to the two water-users at either end?" I said. 

"And anyone in physical contact with them. If there is someone else in Shin Makoku that you need to speak with, you will have to ask your brother to summon him." 

I nodded, and turned back to Bernhardt. "I have one more question: why go to so much trouble to bring Alazon here, then just lock her up in a cave and ignore her?" 

Bernhardt shuddered. "That wouldn't have been her final fate. It—the Originator—feared double-blacks, but it _hated_ Shinzoku. I don't know why." 

I had a few guesses. The lost soul's descriptions of the violence done to her children hadn't faded from my mind. If she—and they—had died at the hands of Shinzoku, then of course her hatred would have focused on them in her more lucid moments. 

When and where had she died? I couldn't imagine anyone killing children in cold blood, so there had to have been a battle or a riot or something. And . . . had she herself been a double-black? Her hair and eyes had certainly been dark . . . 

At that moment, my stomach growled, suggesting a change of topic. "So, is there anything to eat in this place?" 

"Soup, cheese, biscuits," Josak said. "I'll get you some." 

"Who made the soup?" I asked suspiciously. 

"I did, mostly," Max replied. "Everything that could be done without standing up, anyway. I had Damyen for those bits. Don't worry, it's edible." 

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Sorry, but I keep remembering the time Josak tried to spit-roast that chicken . . ." It had been a classic case of charcoal on the outside, raw on the inside. Heike had rescued it afterwards and turned it into something edible, but dinner had been late that night. 

Josak rolled his eyes. "We didn't have a lot of whole chickens around when I was learning to cook. Even you have to admit that my pancakes are decent." But he was grinning as he flounced out of the room. 

The soup really was decent, and the biscuits were fluffy. The cheese was so-so—I don't think it had been aged long enough—but then you can't have everything. Afterwards, I leaned against Geneus' shoulder and listened while Heike, Josak, and Max hammered out the logistics of getting nine people (one of them with a broken leg), seven horses, and a mule down to Small Cimaron. Oddly, I didn't feel any urgent need to take up where we'd left off in the bedroom. Just being close to him, our linked hands resting in my lap, was enough for now. 

They nearly had things sorted out when Heike stopped talking in the middle of a sentence and jerked his head up. "Someone's coming. Horses. A fair number of them." 

"Guess the army noticed that the clouds're gone," Josak said. "Shouri-sama, M'Lord Sage—what do you want to do?" 

"Depends on whether it's Lieutenant Flood or someone less sensible," I said. 

"As a precaution, Heike should answer the door, while the rest of us stay out of view of the windows," Geneus added. "We can decide what to do once we see what they want." 

"They could just ride right on by," Josak pointed out. 

"Maybe," I said, "but it's getting dark out, and I'd bet there isn't anything else lit up around here. If they get close enough to see us, they'll probably stop in." 

"Hmmm. Maybe I should throw on some tea." Josak's grin was not unexpected, but his eyes were serious. 

I could hear the hoofbeats now too, which meant that the horses had to be close. "Disguises?" I asked, squeezing Geneus' hand. He nodded, and a few moments later, I was blonde again. 

The knock on the door, when it came, was as loud as thunder. "Open up in the name of Lanzhil the Second, King of Big Cimaron!" 

Heike pushed himself from his seat and limped out into the hall. I heard the door open, then snatches of a conversation: "Who . . . ?" and "Looking for . . ." and " . . . arrest . . .", which didn't sound good. I didn't relax until I heard the door shut again, and Heike's footsteps in the hallway. 

The former White Crow leader dropped back into his seat with a slight wince of pain. "They're looking for double-blacks—and for 'whatever caused the clouds', but it's obvious that they think that was a Mazoku plot too. Lieutenant Flood was with them, but she wasn't in charge. Most of them are going to continue searching the area, but they left a few people here to 'protect' us." 

"In other words, they want to see if anyone leaves," Josak said, with a grimace. "I guess that gives us two options: stay put, and hope they don't figure us out, or sneak out, and try not to get caught." 

"Either way, the risk is tremendous," Heike said. "Lord Geneus' disguise won't fool anyone who was in contact with him at Lanzhil's court, and it's clear that at least some people remember last year's Great Games and Josak's participation. And if they realize what Lady Alazon has done, she will be at risk as well. And Lord Shouri . . . well, that goes without saying." 

I grimaced. Yeah, it did: if Lanzhil's men picked me up, they would be jumping for joy at the knowledge that they finally had something they could use against Shin Makoku. "If the four of us could just get away, the rest of you should be able to sit this out. Assuming that Lord Bernhardt and his sons can continue to pass as Cimaronese, that is." 

"Technically, Kathal and I _are_ Cimaronese," Max pointed out. "We may be Mazoku, but we were also born here." 

"Except that Mazoku blood automatically disqualifies you from being a citizen," Josak said. "Or else I probably wouldn't have wound up where I did. Life's funny, sometimes." 

"Pass as human, then," I said. "Can you do it?" 

"We can," Lord Bernhardt confirmed. "We have been for years." 

"The last think they would ever suspect a houjutsu sorcerer of being is a Mazoku," Kathal added, which was true. "We'll be fine." 

"So that only leaves the sneaking-away part," I said. "Josak?" 

"It's gonna be tough. I don't think you've been outside to look, but there isn't much cover around here. Even if we can get away ourselves, we're gonna hafta leave the horses." 

"There may be another way," Geneus said. "If Shouri is up to it, and if we can find a bathtub or a large basin." 

"You mean, go via the other world?" Josak asked. 

"The spell can be used to travel from point to point in this world as well," Geneus said. "Using it so requires less power, but finer control. I do not think Shouri is strong enough to transport four of us to his home and back again, even with my power to aid him. Neither of us is at full strength." 

"Too bad—I've been kinda curious about this 'Earth' place ever since the Captain told me about it." 

What terrified me was that, if I did bring him home, my mother would probably like Josak. And she'd express it by going through her closet with him, then taking him on a tour of her favourite dress shops. Frilly things. _Pink_ frilly things, and yards of lace and . . . _Ugh._ I love my mother, but her taste in clothes is a bit disturbing. I suppose I should be grateful that it was Yuuri she used to try to dress up as a girl, and not me. 

"I guess this means we're going back to Shin Makoku, then, since I've never been to Small Cimaron," I said. 

"I have," Geneus replied. "And there is an ornamental pond in the palace gardens which I believe I can find again, if you will permit me to guide your power. However, the choice is yours." 

"You know that I trust you absolutely," I said softly, squeezing his hand again. "And I do want to talk to Beryes." 

"Guess that settles it," Josak said. "Zheran, can you look in the kitchen for something we can use? I'll check the storage room at the back." 

"The horse trough in the barn is pretty big," Damyen said. 

"Might be a little tough to get everyone out there without being seen, but we can keep it in mind if we can't find anything else," Josak said. "Thanks, kiddo." 

Damyen gave him a quick grin. 

The family that had lived in this house had apparently done all of their bathing in an enameled tin hip bath that wouldn't accommodate more than one smallish person, but someone had also done industrial quantities of baking, because Zheran found a pan that was large enough for the four of us to stand in if Josak went up on tiptoe. I looked at it dubiously as Josak set it on the kitchen floor and poured a couple of centimetres of water into it. Granted, Shin'ou had once teleported Yuuri through a mud puddle, but I would have been happier if we'd had more water for my first attempt at this. Not least because I felt a little silly standing in a pan with my body pressed tightly against Geneus on my left and Josak, with whom I was standing back-to-back. 

"You may prefer to close your eyes," Geneus said, and I did. "Extend your focus into the water first. Then you must try to reach through it." His maryoku brushed against mine, guiding me gently in a direction that couldn't be described in words. Somewhere to the left of the real world, there was a massive ocean, full of swirling currents, that was connected to every single droplet of water . . . and my breath caught in my throat as I realized that this was what my element _was_ . . . There aren't really words for that either, for the totality of all water everywhere, or, well, maybe a really good poet could manage something that comes close. I'm not one. 

Geneus guided me past the currents and eddies, reaching for something, a pattern that he clearly recognized when he found it but that meant nothing to me, until I thought to reach through it as Geneus had guided me to do with the pan, and saw a pond in a large, well-manicured garden. 

"Good," came the soft voice. "Now, you must create the strongest current you can manage from here to there, and pull us through." 

Making a current was just moving water—the basic skill that Ulrike had drilled me in when I'd first been learning to use majutsu—and the millions of tiny motes of energy scattered through that sea seemed amused by my efforts and moved some of it for me, but I had no idea how to do the second part. 

"The water here is also there," Geneus prompted. "Erase the difference in your mind. And if the water is in both places, then we, who are touching the water, are _also_ in both places." 

It felt like turning my brain inside out. Nothing can be in two places at once . . . _Okay, flip it on its head. If nothing can be in two places at once, and yet I can feel the water being both here and there, it follows that both places are the_ same _place, in some way. There's no contradiction—we're both "here" and "there" because "here"_ is _"there" . . ._

I don't know why that way of looking at things worked when the other didn't, but suddenly there was nothing but water under my feet, and the current was yanking me down. I tucked and reversed directions in the water so that my head was pointing forward, and swam for the light that I think was more an artefact of my maryoku than anything else. Then the current was pushing me up, and my head broke the surface of the ornamental pond. My teeth almost instantly started chattering, because the water was rimmed in ice, and it was _cold_. 

"Need . . . dry clothes," Josak forced out as he surfaced beside me. Alazon and Geneus appeared a moment later, and I let go of the current and the mapping between the pond and the pan and the ocean to the left of reality, almost ending up with a mouthful of water as I sagged with relief. If I hadn't been freezing, I think I would have fainted—all the marrow seemed to have been sucked out of my bones, and I couldn't stand without planting my feet well apart, and the water was so cold it burned . . . 

Then suddenly the water was warm, steaming into the cold air. Beside me, Geneus dropped to his knees, head tilted back to keep his face above the water, and I realized he'd just expended the last of his own maryoku to keep us from dying of hypothermia. He'd been feeding me power unobtrusively all through the trip, and I'd barely noticed, because I was so used to the feel of him. 

"Hey! What are you doing in there?!" 

There were eight guards . . . or at least I thought there were eight. I'd lost control of my liquid contacts, and everything was smearing and blurring around me. Eight guards with . . . spears? . . . surrounding the pond and pointing their weapons at us. When I looked down, the blur of colour that was probably my reflection showed that my hair was black again. 

"Get your king," I gritted out. "Or Beryes. They know who we are." 

"The king is a busy man," someone said, and I almost laughed with the absurdity of it. 

"So we'll wait here until he has an opening in his schedule," Josak said. "We'd 'preciate it if you didn't make us wait too long, though. The water's nice enough now, but a couple of us are in lousy shape, and the Maoh might get pissed off if his brother drowned in your palace garden because some _foot soldier_ didn't know when to ask for help from upstairs." 

There was some muttering that included a couple of rude words before a blurry someone ran off, hopefully to find Saralegui. 

"Hey, you two, stay awake! Damn, I'd almost prefer to be doing this with the kiddo—at least then I only have to deal with _one_ limp double-black." 

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Lieutenant Gurrier." Geneus was back on his feet, but that didn't mean that he was steady—in fact, when he slid an arm around me, I could feel him trembling. "We will lean on each other, so that you may have your hands free in case of . . . necessity." 

"That isn't what I meant," Josak said. From his tone, he was probably rolling his eyes. 

"Nevertheless, I think it is a reasonable precaution." 

"Oh, now, what have we here? A trio of soggy Mazoku, and—" Saralegui's voice suddenly died. Presumably he'd just recognized Alazon. 

I cleared my throat. "Sorry for dropping in unannounced, but this Mazoku would like to get less soggy as quickly as possible, so it would be appreciated if you could have your guards clear enough space for us to get out of the water without getting hung up on unexpected pointy things." 

"But of course! Please forgive me for being such a terrible host. Come inside, and we'll find you some dry clothes and hot tea." 

"He is sending the guards back to their posts," Geneus murmured. 

"Worst case, at least the dungeon should be dry, and out of the wind," Josak said. A splash and a scramble, and he was out of the water, and holding out his hand to help us out too. Geneus drew me with him, up and over the edge of the pool. Someone else was helping Alazon, someone with dark clothes and green hair—Beryes. 

"Sister, this is the last place I expected to see you." 

"This is the last place I expected to be," Alazon replied. "Sara—" 

"Let's go inside," the young king said, cutting her off. "If you die of hypothermia, I'm never going to get to hear why you came for this little visit, and I have to admit that I'm curious." 

"Lead the way," I said, and shivered. Without the edge of the pond to protect us, the light breeze bit straight into my skin, as though my wet clothes weren't there at all. 

We followed a hedge-lined pathway for a moment, then passed through a door into a blurry stone corridor where the air was still. From there, Saralegui ushered us into a sitting room with a large fireplace. Heavy towels and wool blankets appeared from somewhere, and we all immediately stripped down to our underwear, dried off, and wrapped up . . . except Alazon, who insisted on disappearing behind an ornamental screen with her towel and blanket. I heaved a sigh as the feeling of being so cold it hurt went away, and dropped onto a sofa beside Geneus—well, actually, I landed a bit on the arm, because the world around me was still composed of blurs. 

"So how was your trip to Big Cimaron?" Saralegui asked. I wished I could get my eyes to focus—the young king was as slippery as a jellied eel, and not being able to see his expression put me at a real disadvantage. 

I forced a smile. "Bedbugs, third-rate inns, awkward encounters with the army, renegade Mazoku, and random Originators . . . nothing we couldn't handle." 

"Well, I hope that at least you didn't bring the bedbugs _with_ you," Saralegui said. His voice sounded slightly off, suggesting that I'd succeeded in startling him. _Good._

"Shouri-sama and M'Lord Sage froze most of 'em," Josak said. "And if there were any still with us ten minutes ago, I'm pretty sure they drowned." 

"Well, that's certainly a relief." I could almost picture Saralegui's expression, his guileless false smile and the way his eyes would be just visible over the top edge of his glasses. "I don't suppose you found out who stabbed me? I'm a little annoyed about the scar, you see. It's rather unsightly, and I'm afraid it might disturb my future spouse, whoever they may turn out to be." 

"I can't give you names, but we're pretty sure they came from Seisakoku," I said. "There were two groups of assassins, which complicates matters. The ones we found in Cimaron were the ones who attacked Geneus and I, but they weren't the ones who went after you and Yuuri at Blood Pledge Castle, and they no longer have the sword." 

"Hmm. And you have no idea who exactly was involved? Beryes?" 

"It has been twenty years since I left Seisakoku," the disguised Shinzoku rumbled. "The factions will have shifted since then. And if they were Shinzoku, it is possible that the attacks had nothing to do with their desire to get their hands on the sword." 

There was something in his tone of voice . . . "What do you mean?" I asked. 

"He means that the Shinzoku, like many Mazoku, despise those of mixed blood," Geneus said. 

"The situation is far worse than it is in Shin Makoku," Alazon said softly. "Those whose families have never possessed houryoku are treated, at best, as serfs, forbidden to own land or significant property. Many are enslaved outright. Until I met your father, Sara, I thought it was the natural order of things. And in the end, I could not change the will of the people enough to openly wed the man I loved, or to protect our children." 

I frowned. This was starting to sound . . . kind of sinister. 

"Child _ren_? I have a brother? Or a sister?" Saralegui sounded honestly bewildered. 

"You had a twin," Beryes said gruffly. "The midwife claimed he was stillborn." 

" _Claimed?_ " 

"We discovered afterwards that she had ties to one of the anti-human factions," Alazon said. "My maid had left the room to find a basket and swaddling for the second child, and I was no more than semiconscious. Yelshi may truly have been stillborn, or she may have smothered him. I doubt we will ever know for certain." 

A slightly scrambled picture was beginning to materialize in my mind's eye. Alazon had made enemies of the anti-human faction in Seisakoku; therefore, they would have wanted the sword back, but not her. The opportunity to kill her abhorrent half-breed son would have been considered a bonus, and the unsuccessful attack on Yuuri would just have been to muddy the waters and hide who they were and what they were after. The actual attackers had probably been innocent, poor bastards—a full Shinzoku would be able to hypnotize people even more effectively than Saralegui himself. In a way, Alazon was lucky that Bernhardt's people had kidnapped her, or she would likely have been a target as well, as the traitor who had sullied the blood of their race. 

All of this meant that Yuuri was in no further danger, and I could have quit and gone home . . . except that I had promised the soul of a dead woman that I would do what I could to right a wrong. And also, well, _Originators_. If there had been two of them, there could just as easily be ten or a hundred. Now that we'd traced one of them back to a possible source, someone had to investigate. 

In effect, I'd set myself up . . . but once again, I couldn't see what I might have done differently. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose in what was becoming an habitual gesture. "Beryes, I'm going to have some more questions for you—a lot of them—but I'm too tired to think and three-quarters blind. Josak can give you the bare bones of what's happened up to this point. Geneus and I need time and rest to recover our maryoku. A hot bath would be nice too," I added. 

"And a healer," Geneus put in. He was near enough to me that when I turned to give him a questioning look, I could make out the expression of concern on his face, although it was still slightly fuzzy. "If I had realized just how nearsighted you truly were, I would have insisted on finding someone before we left Shin Makoku. Having you effectively go blind every time you overuse your power is a serious liability, Shouri." 

"I was fine before my glasses got smashed," I muttered. 

"I do not think it will be possible to replace them without returning to your own world. Of course, if you prefer to do that, I cannot stop you." The light in his eyes dimmed as he spoke, though. 

I shook my head. "I'm not ready to leave yet. I still have too much to do here." _And I don't want to leave you._ I swallowed nervously, not wanting to say something that sappy in front of Saralegui. "I'll accept your judgement that this is necessary." 

Geneus smiled and gave me a slight nod. "You have someone attached to the castle who is able to do fine work like a lens adjustment, I take it, your Majesty?" he added to Saralegui. 

"Of course. Small Cimaron has many skilled sorcerers. Beryes, arrange it. Also, that bath, and rooms and clothing for our guests—have the tailor brought for Lord Shouri and Lord Geneus, and a dressmaker for Lady Alazon, so that they may be dressed appropriately for tomorrow's reception." 

"Reception?" I said, overriding Josak's mutter of, "So what am I—chopped liver?" 

"Indeed. I invited King Lanzhil here quite some time ago to discuss certain minor details of the treaty between the two Cimarons, and one week ago, he finally accepted. He should arrive around noon tomorrow, so we will be having a reception in his honour tomorrow night." 

I knew it would be a bad idea to hide my face in my hands, but I really wanted to. _I don't see how this can get any worse._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had ended up breaking this into two separate stories (as I considered doing at one point), the dividing point would have come just before Josak opened that door. ;P
> 
> So, from this point on we'll be seeing a lot of sappiness (and, finally, some sexiness) between Shouri and Geneus. We'll also be seeing more of Saralegui, as the Shinzoku begin to become more important to the plot.


	23. Chapter 18

"K-N-F-E-T," I read off the last line of the chart. Funny how eye charts functioned on more or less the same principle in both worlds. And it was a good thing I'd learned how to read the chicken scratch they used here, although I was sure they had a variant chart for illiterates, like the ones they use on Earth for little kids. 

It felt weird to be able to see the other side of a room clearly without the glasses I'd been wearing since I was five. I hadn't had time to adjust to the liquid contacts properly, and now I didn't even need those. Well, _weird_ wasn't necessarily _bad_. It might be nice to be able to see where I was the next time I woke up from a maryoku drain without having to grope around blindly for my glasses first. 

The healer rolled up the chart and set it aside. "One more test, my lord," she said, walking the length of the table until she stood to my right. "Have your eyes follow my finger. I want you to tell me when you can't see the window anymore." 

It was a very no-nonsense finger, short, callused, with a nail trimmed so short that only a hairline of white was showing, but then the healer was a very no-nonsense woman, middle-aged, short-haired, clearly fit, and wearing a military uniform. Actually, I was wearing a military uniform too, or at least the pants and shirt from one, and so was Geneus—they'd decided that spares from the palace guards' stores were the most plentiful clean clothes that might fit us and didn't belong to anyone in particular. No one had actually _said_ anything about Mazoku cooties, but I'd have bet that some of the people we'd seen around the castle were thinking it. 

"Now," I said after a moment. 

"Hmph. Well, you've got a normal range of peripheral vision, and your focus seems to be near-perfect now. Any complaints?" 

"None," I said. "You do good work." 

She snorted. "Try not to get punched in the face for a couple of days, or you might get a rupture. Do you need anything else?" 

"There is one other matter," Geneus said, "but I would not keep you from more urgent pursuits in order to deal with it." 

Another snort. "Mostly, this time of day, I'd be fixing sprains and blisters for idiots who've overdone their training, and if my apprentices can't handle that without me, I'm going to send them back to the college. I'm at your service, my lords." 

"The matter at issue is these," Geneus said, touching his face lightly just below his right eye. "They were inflicted on me by a houjutsu sorcerer, without my consent, as marks of slavery, and I would very much like them removed. Unfortunately they are not tattoos, or I would have dealt with them already." 

The healer approached him and touched his face. A moment later, she frowned. "They're not even artificial birthmarks—more like artificial moles. They'll have to be burned off, and that's a multi-person treatment if I'm going to prevent scarring." 

"I can hold a nerve-block myself, and Shouri can strip the cells via desiccation. We need a third person to perform the actual healing." 

"Given that you're already holding a nerve-block on that mess in your side—whoever speed-healed that hole did you no favours, unless you did _that_ yourself, too—I suppose I have no choice but to believe you on the first point, but I'm not so sure about the second." She gave me an inquiring look, but I was more interested in something else. 

"I thought you said your side was alright," I said to Geneus, who shrugged. 

"The wound truly is closed, Shouri. The speed-healing procedure is disrecommended by most healers because if the wound is not entirely clean before it is applied, the resulting infection may require it to be reopened. I assure you, Heike and I were careful. The area will be tender and inflamed for another day or so while the tissues recover from the trauma, but after that, I should have nothing worse than a minimal scar." 

I looked at the healer, who imitated Geneus' shrug. "As far as I can tell, the wound really was clean, and he isn't in danger. If not for the nerve block, though, he'd be in worse pain than if he'd left well enough alone." 

I turned back to Geneus. "I understand why you did it," I said quietly, "but next time, I want to be there even if you have to wake me out of a maryoku-exhaustion coma." 

"As you wish." He smiled, and his hand touched mine, briefly. 

"I'd prefer it if you waited on this, too." I licked dry lips. "I know I promised to help, but I don't know if I can—" 

"Shouri. You know that I do not trust others blindly. You are more than capable of this. Your fine control of your majutsu is greater than most of our kind ever achieve, or even care to try for." 

I flushed. "That isn't it. It's just . . . I don't know if I can bring myself to hurt you!" I blurted out, then went even redder. 

"Even when you know that it is for the sake of something I want?" 

"I _do_ know," I said. The purple markings hadn't bothered me at first, but when he'd explained what they meant . . . Alazon treating him like property again . . . _Damn it!_ "But . . . it's hard." 

Geneus touched my hand again. "I am sorry." 

"Yeah." I took a deep breath. "All right, let's do this before I lose my nerve." 

It took a bit of jostling around before we were satisfied with our positions: Geneus seated, with me and the healer both standing in front of him with our hands resting lightly on his face, just below the left eye. 

"Start from the bottom of the wedge," came the quiet prompt. 

I drew the water from a tiny triangle of purple skin, feeling the cells puff into dust. The healer came behind, exerting her power before more than a hint of blood could well up from the raw flesh, and leaving behind an area that was reddened with irritation, but otherwise undamaged. We worked our way up to Geneus' eyelid one strip at a time. He didn't move, except for breathing and the occasional blink. 

I hesitated over the folded skin just below the eye, biting my lip. He'd said that he could end up blind if this was done wrong, and it was difficult to tell exactly which parts of the softly sagging skin were marked . . . Geneus' gaze flickered to me for a moment, and then he closed that eye, giving me a more even surface to work on. 

It took eleven strips, each no more than a millimetre wide, to finish that side, and I was sweating buckets by the time it was done. I didn't relax until Geneus opened his eye again and gave me one of his quiet smiles. 

The second wedge went a bit quicker, now that I knew what I was doing, and I was less nervous about the forehead marking than the others. I think we all sagged a bit when it was over, though. 

"Thank you, both," Geneus said, and rose from the chair where he'd been seated. A moment later, I found myself parting my lips to give him better access for a tender and very thorough kiss. 

The healer chuckled. "Wish _I_ rated that level of gratitude . . . er, sorry, my lords. Really, the chance to do something more than patch up sprained wrists is a reward in and of itself. If you have no further need for me, I'll see myself out." 

"We thank you for your assistance," Geneus said, his tone also making it a dismissal. The healer stuffed the rolled eye chart back into the bag she'd taken it from and left the sitting room, which left us alone. 

I touched Geneus' face gently, tracing the outline of a red phantom wedge. "Does it hurt?" I asked. 

"Not at all. The skin is irritated, certainly—hot, tight, and throbbing slightly—but then that could be said about other parts of my body as well." Unexpectedly, he took my other hand and guided it down between his legs to rest on a firm bulge there. "By morning, I expect both problems to have subsided. In truth, I can scarcely wait for this day to be over, so that we may have some reasonably certain privacy." 

I swallowed. My mouth felt dry, and Little Shouri was definitely standing at attention again. "We could . . . right now . . ." 

"I do not trust Saralegui to leave us unobserved and uninterrupted for long enough, alas," Geneus said, punctuating the words by nibbling gently on my ear. I'd never thought of ears as an erogenous zone before, but he somehow managed to raise a spark that shot straight to Little Shouri. "We do still have a session with his tailor to look forward to." 

"I'm not quite sure why he wants us at this reception at all," I said. "I would have thought that having Mazoku that visibly present would only get him in trouble with Lanzhil. What am I missing?" 

"Saralegui's confidence, I think. He believes he can play the two largest nations in this part of the world off against each other. We shall see about that." Another nibble on my ear, and then Geneus began to kiss his way down the side of my neck. 

I slid my arm around him to draw him closer without even thinking about it, but I also forced myself to say, "If you keep doing that, I'm not going to be able to wait until we're sure we're alone. In fact, if you go much farther, I think I'd jump you even if my mother were in the room." Of course, knowing Mom, it was entirely possible she would have cheered me on . . . 

The assault on my neck and my ear was discontinued, but Geneus did pause to stare deep into my eyes. "I cannot say that I would be entirely sorry," he murmured. 

"I'm not sure that I would be either," I admitted. 

There was a throat-clearing noise from near the door. "My lords . . . if you would care to come with me, I will escort you to the tailor." 

I sighed and disengaged myself from Geneus so that I could turn and follow the servant. Outside in the hallway, once he had his back to us, a hand with a narrow ridge of scar tissue across the back slid into mine and squeezed gently. I squeezed back, and almost—almost—smiled. 

The tailor was evidently a permanent resident of the castle, because the room in which we found him was piled much too high with bolts of fabric and bins of buttons and who-knew-what to have been thoroughly cleaned at any time in the past ten years. He himself was a fussy little man with a waxed mustache and goatee, and he prowled around the room using a ruler to poke at seamstresses and a boy of about Yuuri's age that I suspected was his apprentice. 

"No, no, no! Not like that, you idiot! If you sew it like that, the piping will be uneven!" He whacked the boy's shoulder with his ruler, then turned to face us. "Yes? Oh, you would be the Mazoku guests. Come with me, please." I got the feeling that the _please_ was an afterthought, and wondered if he pushed Saralegui around like this. Beryes would probably give him the fisheye if he did. 

On the other side of the sewing room was a small octagonal area delineated by seven standing mirrors and a curtain slung on a rod. The tailor ushered us inside. 

"His Majesty has informed me that you require proper clothing very urgently. As such, I have taken the liberty of selecting fabrics and cutting them to approximate dimensions using the designs he suggested . . . if you would both kindly strip . . ." 

Geneus and I exchanged a glance. With a sigh, I began to unbutton my shirt. I understood the need to be properly dressed for an official function, but I hated fittings even more than I hated clothes shopping, as I'd discovered when Bob had decided I needed a tuxedo. 

A minute or so later, I was shivering in my underwear, and trying not to admire Geneus' body—Little Shouri still hadn't entirely settled down, and I didn't want to be hard when the tailor started manhandling me, or he might start to think I had some kind of weird fetish. So I kept my eyes fixed on the floor . . . and instantly found them drawn to a jagged scar marring creamy-pale skin. Sandbear, I think he'd said that one was. It made me want to kiss it and soothe away the memory of pain . . . _Get a grip, Shouri. You'll have your chance tonight._

"If you would straighten your arm, please, my lord . . . Yes, like that. Now, lift your chin . . ." 

I would give the tailor this: he was expert at his job. He pinned several pieces of unfinished clothing into place around me without even once pricking me, while one of the women did the same for Geneus. 

" . . . Perfect. If you would care to have a look, my lords?" 

I raised my eyes from the floor, and was confronted by a mirror image I barely even recognized. The Shouri I normally saw in the bathroom mirror had glasses and short hair and dressed casually whenever he could get away with it. Certainly he never wore a jacket and trousers that, though unfinished, were obviously in the pseudomilitary style common in Shin Makoku, or black velvet in any style at all. The jacket had panels of intensely blue silk on the shoulders, and there was a bit of silver braid banding one of the sleeves. 

"Refugee from a military ball, circa 1850," I muttered. I had to admit that the style wasn't completely unflattering, though, given the way it emphasized the contrast between the breadth of my shoulders and a waist that was trimmer than it had ever been before in my life. Complete the outfit with the expected sword, belt, high boots, and silk cravat and I'd give Waltorana von Bielefelt a run for his money in the best-dressed department. At least the jacket was only hip-length, like Conrad's. I sighed. Well, it wasn't like I could expect Sara to let me attend a royal reception in T-shirt and jeans, if I'd even had a T-shirt and jeans with me. I'd just have to bear with it. 

I rubbed my chin absently, chasing an itch—come to think of it, when was the last time I'd shaved?—turned to look at Geneus . . . and froze. 

Saralegui obviously had a good memory and an eye for detail. Even incomplete, the high-collared black shirt, long blue tunic and loose purple wrap overtop were unmistakable to anyone who had ever seen a certain painting. Dressed like that, with the purple marks gone from his face and that faint smile curving his lips, Geneus could have posed for the damned thing. All he needed was a book. And the clothes suited him—or maybe it was just that he looked at ease, dressed like that. 

"Shouri?" 

I swallowed. "I'm not sure this is a good idea." 

Geneus' smile faded, and he sighed softly. "Nor am I, but chances are that only a handful of the others present will be aware of the implications." 

"My lords . . . ?" 

"These will do," I said, forcing myself to sound authoritative. "How long will it take you to finish them?" 

The tailor stroked his beard. "If I put two of the women on each major garment, and we work through the night, we should have them ready by mid-morning, even with the need to take everything in. His Majesty said you were both slender-built, but I didn't quite expect . . . although I suppose I should have. The beauty of your people is legendary, after all, and while I personally only caught a glimpse of the Maoh and his attendants when they made their visit here . . ." 

I ignored his prattling as he went to work with more pins and a stub of chalk, making cryptic marks on each piece of clothing as he disassembled it. I was still trying to remember when I'd last shaved. It was niggling at me for some reason. Not since I'd woken up at the farmhouse, obviously. Not in Thornacre. Two days before that, when I'd borrowed a razor from one of the Zher because Heike had been busy with something else? If it had been four days, even with my thin beard I should have had a five o'clock shadow, so why didn't I? I tested my chin again with my fingers. No stubble. 

Someone _could_ have shaved me while I'd been unconscious, but I was starting to feel something exquisitely cold sliding down my spine. 

I looked in the mirror. The tailor had already deconstructed my jacket and most of my shirt, leaving me in a sort of vest, open at the front and sides, that revealed more of my upper body than it concealed. 

There was no hair under my arms. None. Nothing on my arms, either, or what I could see of my chest. That wasn't a bad thing in and of itself, but I didn't understand _why_ it had happened. The idea of someone giving me a full body-shave while I was unconscious was weird to the point of being disturbing, but what other explanation was there? 

The tailor muttered something to himself and lifted the last bit of shirt off me, and I discovered something else: I had abs. Well, I mean, they always must have been there somewhere, but even months of judo with Bob followed by a couple of weeks of horse travel through the back-end of Cimaron had never given me a level of definition where I could trace each individual muscle. Or I didn't think they had. Really, I normally didn't spend much time ogling my own naked body. 

I forced myself to keep quiet until the tailor had finished disassembling his creations and hustled back out, leaving Geneus and I alone to dress. Surreptitiously, I slid my hand inside my underwear and felt around. Little Shouri was still resting on a bed of hair—I'd been _almost_ certain that I would have noticed if I'd been smooth there too, so that wasn't really a surprise—but the texture was different: finer, softer, and straighter than it should have been. 

"Are you well?" Trust Geneus to notice that I felt something was off. 

I licked my lips. "You didn't shave me while I was out cold with maryoku loss, did you?" 

"I think what you are noticing is the effect of your maryoku on your body." I must have given him a blank look, because Geneus continued, "Our powers shape us subtly, on the basis of our subconscious desires. The appearance of most Mazoku harks back to ideals of physical beauty so old that not even I remember where and how they came into being. Our ancestors' power shaped them in the image they desired, and over time some traits became hereditary . . . with some inconsistency about whether beards are unsightly or proof of virility in a man. You came into your power late, so the changes your power can still achieve are coming all at once, rather than being woven imperceptibly into your physical makeup as you matured." 

"But that would mean that, on some level, I want to be . . . more Mazoku," I said slowly. "Wouldn't it?" _Was_ that what I wanted? 

When Bob had taken me out for dinner on my sixteenth birthday, I'd told him that I would be Mazoku and succeed his position—without thinking about it very hard and certainly without realizing that it was a ceremony that would decide my future, or at least an abbreviated version of one. I wasn't even sure he had known. But it had felt right to answer him in that way, right on more levels than just wanting power to protect Yuuri. When Alazon had first told me her story and offered me that damned sword of hers, I'd told her that I was Mazoku, no qualifiers. She had been the one to remind me of my mixed blood. 

Identity. It had never been something I'd thought about all that much, before. I'd had a clear path in front of me: take over from Bob, protect and support Yuuri when he eventually had to go to Shin Makoku. I hadn't been interested in who I was—I'd known what I meant to achieve, and that had been enough. But that had been before. Now . . . There were so many more levels to what I wanted now. Protect and support Yuuri. Protect and love Geneus. Fulfill my promise to a ghost, and put any Originators that might still exist to rest. And extricate myself, Geneus, and Josak from whatever mess Saralegui was trying to land us in, here and now. Some of that just needed power, some needed quick wits . . . and some of it needed everything I could give, and likely more. 

I needed the strength that went with being Mazoku and having maryoku . . . but my power had also become so intensely a part of me, especially these last few weeks, that losing it again would have felt crippling. And . . . if I . . . I couldn't ask Geneus to love a human, with a human's short lifespan. He'd had enough heartbreak already. To be worthy of him, I had to be Mazoku. 

Something deep down inside me shifted as that thought passed through my mind, and I was briefly overcome with a powerful feeling of inadequacy. Tainted . . . not good enough . . . never good enough . . . why would he choose me over the golden man he had loved for so long . . . ? 

Arms slid loosely around me, and I was drawn back until my body was pressed against another. Geneus. Once again, I didn't have to turn to look, or even just glance in the mirror: I could feel the dregs of his maryoku coiling themselves around me protectively. 

"Your scent has changed as well," that familiar soft voice said, right in my ear. "Richer . . . more mature. I find it intoxicating." I felt his nipples, pebbled and firm, pressing against my bare back as he once again began to kiss his way down my neck. 

"I thought I was supposed to be the teenaged sex fiend in this relationship," I muttered. "All those years of celibacy must have fried the relevant parts of your brain. In case you hadn't noticed, we don't have a locked door here, either." 

"Alas . . ." But he did let me go, eyes sparkling. Since the first time he'd kissed me, it was as though the weight of a thousand years had dropped from his shoulders, I thought fondly. And maybe it had. 

I let myself watch him for a bit as I buttoned my shirt, admiring the way he moved—smooth and graceful, and yet there was power there too, held in check. Despite his long hair and the way he normally dressed, there was nothing in the least feminine about Geneus . . . and I liked it that way. 

"Shall we?" Fully dressed now, albeit in a shirt and trousers that just looked wrong on him, Geneus made a smooth gesture in the direction of the curtain that divided this little mirrored space from the rest of the room. I nodded, and we headed for the hallway. 

We spent an hour or so exploring Saralegui's palace. Although he never said so, I had a feeling that Geneus had seen a floor plan of it at one time or another, because he always seemed to know where we were. 

Where Blood Pledge Castle had only two portraits on prominent display, Small Cimaron's royal palace had an entire hallway lined with them: more than forty men and women, most of them with unpleasant expressions. Geneus stopped in front of the last portrait and gave it a thoughtful look. 

There was an engraved plaque attached to the frame, and I puzzled over it for a moment before reading, "King Gilbert the First. Saralegui's father?" 

"I believe so." 

I looked up at the painting itself, examining its stern-faced, scarred, bearded subject critically. "They don't look alike." 

"I suspect the resemblance would be greater if this had been painted when he was younger . . . although it is true that Saralegui seems to have largely taken after his mother. Gilbert was no fool, but he did not think like his son. Even his areas of scholarly interest were military. Saralegui seems to have moved beyond that. He would be . . . an interesting opponent, if the stakes were less high." 

It didn't take a genius to figure out that Geneus wasn't talking about challenging Saralegui to a game of checkers. The rules of the game of politics, war, and high finance couldn't be quite the same in this world as they were on Earth, since information didn't move as quickly here, but what I knew of Small Cimaron's situation still fell into the broad outlines that Bob had taught me. "He doesn't see anybody, except maybe Beryes, as being on his side. The rest of us are either dupes or enemies, as the occasion calls for. And he intends to end up with total control of the board, one way or the other, and sweep all the other pieces to the floor." 

Geneus nodded. "Someone—the Maoh of Earth?—has taught you well. I expected to have to dissect it for you, as I would have for . . ." 

I blinked. "I would have thought that Shin'ou would be good at this stuff." 

A wry smile. "Shin'ou, when I first met him, was . . . far less subtle than he is today. Indeed, I suspect that without the fires of war to temper him, he would have been much like your brother. They have similar strengths." 

Now, that one was tough to wrap my head around. The Shin'ou I knew was . . . what, really? I'd only spoken to the man two or three times. He'd been worried about Geneus and pissed off at Murata for tricking him . . . What would Yuuri have done in that position? The anger was universal, but was the compassion? Shin'ou played with people's lives. I couldn't really see Yuuri doing that, even if he thought it was for the best, but Shin'ou did have a harder edge . . . 

"I don't see it," I was forced to admit. 

"They both see the best in people, and in doing so, they inspire everyone around them to match the image they have of them. Shin'ou's methods are more circuitous, but then your brother is one of the most direct people I have ever met." 

I thought about it—about Yuuri and the people around him and servants' gossip I'd overheard at Blood Pledge Castle, about what things had been like when he'd first arrived. 

"It's part of his unique charm," I said at last, and Geneus actually laughed. 

"Tsk, tsk. Laughing in front of the official portraits of His Majesty's honoured predecessors isn't allowed. I'm going to have to fine you five-and-three . . . M'Lord Sage." Josak lifted off his helmet and gave us both a grin. I hadn't sensed him standing there until a moment after he'd spoken, when he'd taken the step that brought him within six feet, because my maryoku was still so low that I didn't want to extend my focus very far from my body. 

"Surely you cannot be so impoverished as that, Lieutenant Gurrier." 

"Where did you get the uniform?" I asked—after our little adventure in the pond, Josak had been given the same kind of shirt and trousers as Geneus and I were wearing, but since then he'd somehow acquired a full palace guard's rig, with a jacket, steel armour, and a spear almost exactly as long as he was tall. 

Josak smirked. "I walked right up to the quartermaster and asked for it. Told him I was a new recruit. That's half the secret to being a spy, y'know—if you've got enough in the way of brass balls to pretend that you belong, a lot of people'll believe you. Wouldn't have be able to pull it off if the guys who were poking at us in the gardens had come off-duty yet, though." 

"And what have you discovered on your tour of the guardhouse?" 

Josak's expression sobered. "Not much, and I don't think it's just because Saralegui plays his cards close to his chest, 'cause a whole bunch of people clammed up when they saw someone they didn't recognize. I caught a few bits here and there, but that's all." 

"And?" 

"They're expecting something to happen tomorrow night, but whether that's because our pretty-boy princeling intends to start something or he just expects Lanzhil to go postal when he sees the two of you, I really don't know." 

Geneus frowned. "Lanzhil does tend to overreact when he is frightened, but physically, he is a coward, and I would not have expected Saralegui to allow him to bring a force of any size into this country. I am certain our young host could arrange some mishap if he felt it necessary." 

"Yeah, that's what's got me kinda puzzled. Lanzhil could bring an escort of houjutsu sorcerers, I suppose, if he really wanted to make a nuisance of himself, but he'd need more than just a couple of them to take on Beryes." 

"So we must assume that Saralegui intends to start something." Geneus' eyes narrowed. "I have the unpleasant feeling that the timing of our arrival may have been fortuitous for him. Lieutenant Gurrier, when Lanzhil arrives, I want you to shadow him. See that he comes to no harm." 

"You think Saralegui's going to try to kill him." It wasn't a question—I could see the pattern too, and it wasn't pretty. "I thought he'd given up on trying to start a war between Big Cimaron and Shin Makoku." 

Josak's eyes widened. "You mean—you as scapegoats—oh, shit. I'll stick to Lanzhil like glue." 

"I doubt there would be much of a war, since Lanzhil himself saw to it that no one else is left in the direct line of succession. The nobles will have to choose between trying to convince Lord Weller to take up his ancestral duty . . . and taking advantage of the situation themselves, which is no doubt what several of them will do. My fear is that the attempt will misfire." 

"And if I'm the one to save Lanzhil, Saralegui isn't going to be able to palm the responsibility for the assassination off on Shin Makoku. Gotcha." Josak gave us a half-assed salute before vanishing behind a pillar. 

Supper that night was . . . not much fun. Saralegui insisted that we "honoured guests" eat with him and his court, and it was like . . . well, like I imagine being inside a glass-sided refrigerator would be. The room felt ice-cold, and everyone was staring at us—not in the polite, sidelong way that people sometimes did when I was with Bob, but directly and openly, and I didn't think it was because of the way we were dressed. Not a comfortable feeling. Geneus appeared to ignore it, and even to ignore the way Beryes loomed behind his nephew like a stone statue, playing bodyguard, but although he kept up a stream of light conversation with our host, when I touched his hand under the table, it was clenched into a fist. 

Alazon appeared to bear up under the stares . . . but then, I probably looked more or less okay too, and she said even less than I did. And she was getting more stares, I gradually realized . . . or sort of. People kept looking at her, then at Saralegui, then doing their damndest to find something else to look at, which usually ended up being Geneus and me. Beryes had announced her only as "Lady Alazon", but it was pretty damned obvious that everyone had deduced her relationship to the young king, and was trying not to bring it up. Of course, she hadn't made the least effort at a disguise, either, and Saralegui hadn't suggested it. What kind of game was he playing now? 

It seemed to take a couple of years for Saralegui to get tired of playing with the food on his plate. Until he did, no one else could leave the table—that was protocol, and Geneus had warned me about it before we'd entered the room. I was on the verge of faking an illness when Saralegui gave us all a beneficent smile and excused himself. 

The door had barely swung shut behind the tails of Beryes' jacket when I pushed my chair away from the table, nodded politely to the assembled nobles, and headed for that door myself. Geneus caught up with me after three steps, and slid his hand into mine. 

A servant caught us right outside the doors of the dining hall. "Please, my lords, your rooms are this way." 

"This way" turned out to involve four hallways, a flight of stairs up, a flight of stairs down, and a large, poorly-lit open space that I think was the ballroom. The servant we'd been following opened two doors in the hallway on the far side of that last, bowed, wished us a pleasant evening, and scampered off. 

The room on the other side of the nearer door was spacious, with a canopied bed, a round table with two chairs, a sofa, and a glass door that looked out on what I thought was the garden whose pond we'd dropped into earlier that day. Saralegui had probably selected these rooms with care, as a subtle joke. 

"There appears to be a curtain," Geneus observed. "In any case, the bed is not in a direct line-of-sight from the garden door . . . and both doors clearly lock. Shall we forget about Saralegui for a time, so that I may make good on my promises to you?" 

I swallowed as all my blood suddenly shot south and the part of my brain that I normally placated with eroge screamed _yesyesyesyesyes!_

Geneus pushed me gently through the door. There was a soft _click_ as he locked it. Majutsu flickered through the room, fire to light the candles, and a whisper of wind to draw the curtain shut. Then he pinned me against the doorframe with his body, and leaned forward. 

I parted my lips immediately to invite him in, and he lost no time taking advantage of the offer. He did that thing with the tip of his tongue against the roof of my mouth, and I moaned, wrapping my arms around his waist and drawing him in closer so that I could grind Little Shouri against his body. I was already hard to the point of leaking—hell, I could feel the wetness where a drop of moisture had been wicked up by my borrowed underpants. 

"Tell me what you want," Geneus murmured as he broke off the kiss, eyes all but glowing. 

I licked my lips, catching a hint of the taste of him, left behind. "You in me," I said, my stomach churning with nervousness and anticipation . . . and then sinking as I saw him freeze. "We don't have to, if—" 

Geneus touched my face, running his thumb lightly over my lower lip to silence me. "I was only surprised that you would make that particular request so soon." His eyes were still bright and hot with want, I noted with relief. 

"I keep on seeing it in my mind," I admitted. "Him and you, together that way . . . I don't know why, but I want to know. How it feels." There was a lot more tangled up there too. Not to be reminded of my lackluster sex life to date. Wanting to cover his memories of Shin'ou over with memories of me, until he forget what it was even like to be with the homicidal blonde bastard. But I wasn't going to talk about either of those things. They made me feel small, selfish, and ugly. 

"I am apparently losing my touch, if enough of your mind is directed elsewhere for you to be able to think of something unpleasant," Geneus said, and leaned forward again. 

This time, the kiss almost sucked my soul out. I whimpered into his mouth as he began to unbutton my shirt, sliding a hand down to ghost over Little Shouri after freeing each fastening. When the garment was all the way open, he began to kiss his way down my neck, while his hands kneaded my ass, fingertips pressing the cloth of my pants into the crack. His hips made a slow, controlled motion just as his mouth reached my collarbone, and I gasped and grabbed his braid, burying my fingers in the familiar black silk, afraid that without some kind of distraction I was going to come before either of us even had our pants off, and what kind of lover would that make me? 

"Geneus," I breathed, and felt his finger brush against my lips again. 

"Not that name," he said. "Not from you. Not when we are like this." 

"Then what—" Forming more words was beyond me just then, but he must have understood the plea in my eyes, because he raised his head from my shoulder and whispered three syllables into my ear. A name. The name of the Double-Black Great Sage of Shin Makoku, which no one had spoken out loud in forty centuries. And then he nipped my earlobe, and the little flash of pleasure-pain made me toss my head back and almost knock myself silly against the wall, which drew a low chuckle from him. He used the moment in which I froze to pull my open shirt down and off until it lay in a puddle around my feet. 

"Shouri," he murmured. "My own." He pressed his hand against the bulge in my pants, and I groaned and thrust my hips. 

He bent again, found a nipple, and began teasing it with his lips and tongue and teeth, ignoring my moan of disappointment as his hand pulled away and went to work on the fastenings of his own shirt. What he was doing with his mouth was sending more of those little sparks zinging through me, but it wasn't enough. I tried to undo his lowest button myself, hoping to speed things up, but my hands were shaking to the point of making me fumble-fingered. I had to settle for pulling his shirt-tails out of his pants, so that once he had the garment open, all he had to do to send it to the floor was pull his arms out. 

"Bed," I suggested. 

"Not yet." There was that damned teasing hand again . . . I cursed thickly, not even sure what language I was using, and dug my fingers deeper into his braid as his other hand unfastened my belt. And unlaced my trousers. And pulled down everything I was still wearing until my thighs were half-bare and Little Shouri was out and pointing straight at Little Geneus, still imprisoned by layers of cloth. 

The braid slithered through my loosened hands as Geneus dropped to his knees, and I had a single incredulous moment to think, _He can't really be going to—_ before he went down on me. 

I howled wordlessly. Geneus' mouth was wet and warm and he kept going until I was all the way inside, his breath tickling the roots of my pubic hair as Little Shouri's head lodged at the back of his throat. I tried to thrust, hands scrabbling over the stone of the wall behind me, but he held my hips firmly in place. Then he began to suck, and the additional tightness made pressure start to build in my balls. 

"S-stop." Somehow, I found the word, choked it out. "I'm going to—" 

The only response was a soft hum, and the gentle vibration completely undid me. I howled again and spilled myself helplessly down his throat, seeing him swallow as he drank me. If I'd been thinking at all I would have expected him to choke, but he never did. He didn't let Little Shouri slide out again until I was completely spent and softening, and even then he did it slowly, his tongue tracing veins. 

I took a deep breath. "That isn't what I asked you to do," I said. It came out sounding plaintive. 

Geneus rose slowly to his feet. He smiled at me and unclasped the silver band from his braid, then ran his fingers through his hair until it hung free over his back in a black curtain. 

"The night is still young," he said, "and selfishly, I want you to be focused on me when I take you, and not on not spending yourself prematurely. I have been your age often enough to know what fire flows in your veins, Shouri. Have no fear: by the time I have prepared you, you will have fully recovered." 

I shivered as the words _prepared you_ touched something inside me that I hadn't known existed until then. Geneus touching me _there_ with his fingers . . . maybe even his tongue . . . spreading me open and making me ready for him . . . there was that weird little warm tingle I'd felt a couple of times before, arcing through me like an electrical current. 

" _Now_ we move to the bed," Geneus added, "and hope that this castle's excellent hospitality extends to having an appropriate substance on hand. If they do not, I suppose we will have to improvise." 

I pushed my pants all the way down and kicked off my boots, shivering a little as I padded naked across the carpet. Geneus left the rest of his clothes beside mine, but he showed no signs of being cold. Actually, when I touched his shoulder, his skin was almost fever-warm. 

"Fire majutsu," he said, eyes glittering with amusement as well as lust. "However, I expect not to need it anymore very soon. Now, let me see . . ." He rummaged through a nightstand and came up with a small, blue-glazed jar. Removing the lid, he carefully touched the contents with one finger, testing. "Yes, this will do very well." He set it aside again and turned to face me, curling an arm around me and sliding his slick finger down the crack in my ass until it found the opening there, not breaching me, but prodding gently, drawing my attention to that part of my body. I shuddered and whispered the name he had told me, feeling myself start to harden again, more slowly this time. 

I didn't fight the gentle shove that sent me sprawling back onto silk sheets. There was something weirdly intoxicating about being dominated by my partner, something about having Geneus loom over me, skin golden in the flickering candlelight, coaxing me to raise my hips so that he could put a pillow under them. Then he pushed my knees gently apart and spent a moment just looking at me. I flushed as I realized what he had to be seeing: the half-hard dangle of Little Shouri, still slightly damp at the tip from being inside his mouth, resting on a bed of black hair, and my balls and the soft, vulnerable skin behind them, and behind and below that, the opening where he intended to join with me. 

He turned away abruptly and reached for the ceramic pot. "There may be some discomfort at first," he murmured as he coated his fingers. "Bear with me." 

"I understand." My mouth was so dry that it was as much a croak as words. 

Feeling the first finger push inside was . . . anticlimactic, really. It didn't hurt, but it felt odd and a bit uncomfortable, and I frowned and shifted against the pillow. Geneus stroked the inside of my thigh with his other hand as he worked his way in deeper, as though to apologize. I could feel his finger twisting and crooking itself slightly, searching . . . and then I gasped, back arching, as his knuckle found a live wire running from my insides direct to Little Shouri. It was like nothing I had ever felt before, and my scrambled brain found the half-meaningless words _prostate_ and _why didn't I ever let anyone do this to me before?_ as I went instantly from half-mast back to painfully hard. 

"More," I begged, and more I got, at a deliberate, tantalizing pace. Geneus' other hand gripped the base of my cock as he worked his finger in and out of my body, pressing against that spot for a split second of every cycle. I barely even noticed the second finger when he added it, although the third brought a few moments of burning discomfort as it stretched me wider than my body wanted to go at first. I soon adjusted, though, and found myself rocking my hips in time with his motions, wanting to pull him in deeper. He did have long fingers, but there was something vaguely unsatisfying about them. 

Mind you, that didn't keep me from saying something rude and not very coherent when he pulled them out of me. The soft snort and even softer grunt that followed didn't exactly placate me, but then I felt something larger than a finger pressing against my entrance. I rolled my hips, trying to get it inside, but it refused to cooperate. 

"You are ready, I take it." 

"Yeah." I didn't know what I was agreeing to—didn't really care. I just wanted to be filled again _right now_ , and if I'd thought it would get me satisfaction, I would have agreed that I was a three-centimetre-long purple jellyfish floating in a bowl of chocolate custard. 

Geneus gasped and thrust forward, and I felt the burning ache of being stretched wider still, and then he rubbed firmly over that spot and made me see stars. He buried himself balls-deep inside me as I wordlessly urged him on, wrapping my legs around him to try to pull him even closer. I reached for him with my maryoku, too, although I didn't figure that out until afterwards. At the time, it was just another kind of touch, warm and deeply intimate. 

I moved with him as he made a cautious, shallow thrust, then another. He was shaking slightly with the effort of retaining control, and I forced myself to search for words that went beyond _more_ and _harder, damn you!_

"I'm not going to break," I gasped at last. "You don't have to be so gentle." 

Something flared in his eyes, and, with one final shiver, he let himself go. The next thrust was strong enough to rock the bed, and I rode it, and the next and the next, spine curving, fingers grabbing at his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, into his scar, not even aware that I might be drawing blood. There wasn't just a wire running from that spot inside me to the tip of my cock, it was a rod as thick as Little Shouri, and each thrust made the whole thing pulse with pleasure. My entire lower body was hot and heavy and only the firm grip at the base of my cock was keeping me sane. 

And then he let go. 

I screamed incoherently and my vision whited out as the most powerful orgasm I had ever felt rocked my entire body. For a moment, it felt like my soul was being pulled out through my cock, and I hadn't yet come down enough to realize what a ridiculous image that was when I felt _wet_ and _warm_ and _pulsing_ inside me as Geneus filled me with his seed. 

The world took a little while to come back completely. First there was a warm weight holding me down, and the tickle of silken hair spilling across my shoulder and upper arm. Familiar, beloved scent and maryoku, and the sound of two people breathing in unison. Geneus lying on top of me, propped on his elbows so as not to put too much pressure on my chest, his softening cock still inside me. 

He shook a little as he finally pulled out. "Go to sleep," he said, and his voice sounded almost normal. "I will be joining you shortly." 

I rolled over, off the pillow, and curled in on myself slightly, but although my eyes felt heavy with sudden exhaustion, sleep didn't come immediately. I was aware of Geneus moving around the room, and the touch of a warm, wet cloth on my stomach and between my legs. The candles being blown out, and a weight settling beside me on the mattress. Only when his body wrapped itself around mine did I finally drift away into dreams.


	24. Chapter 19

I wasn't at all confused upon waking up this time . . . although I was a little bit sore. I grimaced and sent a trickle of healing maryoku to soothe abused muscles. There was sunlight on the other side of the curtain covering the garden door, and Geneus was still asleep, with his body spooned loosely against my back, his face pressed against my shoulder . . . and his morning wood poking at my thigh. I couldn't blame him for that, though, since Little Shouri had recovered, too. 

I flushed slightly, remembering the night before. Having had sex with him wasn't the problem. No, what I was embarrassed about was nearly having come from being finger-fucked, of all things. I'd known that some men could get off just on being penetrated, but I'd never thought that I would be one of them. It's a bit of a shock finding out that you're a natural bottom, and it clashed pretty hard with the ideals of masculinity I'd always been presented with—that I'd always played along with, because playing politics in a democracy meant pretending to be what other people wanted. 

"Screw that," I whispered out loud, and almost laughed. Geneus shifted against me, making a questioning noise. "Go back to sleep," I told him. 

"Do you expect me to lie in bed all day?" came the reply. "Judging from the sun, it is past mid-morning." 

I rolled over to face him. "Actually, a day in bed doesn't sound like a bad idea at all," I said, and muffled his chuckle with a kiss. Then, feeling a little daring, I reached down, gathered Little Shouri and Little Geneus together, and wrapped my hand firmly around them both. 

Geneus groaned, his hips making a subtle motion. I stroked the heads of both cocks with the pad of my thumb, smearing stray drops of fluid from one to the other. We were better matched in size than I had expected—Geneus was a centimetre or so longer, but I was thicker. In passing, I noticed that my maryoku hadn't just subtracted a little hair and superfluous fat, it had also added back my foreskin, missing ever since I'd been circumcised as an infant in the States. I was starting to wonder why my power hadn't fixed my eyes by itself, without needing the healer's assistance. Maybe it would have, given enough time. 

Geneus' hand cupped my balls, and I gasped and squeezed us both, a slight, involuntary spasm that triggered another involuntary reaction. As a way of dealing with morning wood, it sure beat staggering into the bathroom and locking the door, I reflected afterwards, but it still had the same clean-up problems . . . or at least, I was convinced of that until Geneus detached my sticky hand from both our cocks and brought it to his lips, where he slowly began to lick and suck our mingled seed from my skin. My breath caught, and I could see from the twinkle in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was doing to me. 

"Tease," I muttered, and the response was another one of those sexy low chuckles. "I suppose it's nothing I shouldn't have expected," I added. "Next time, maybe you should try to get laid once every quarter-century or so—reduce the level of pent-up demand." 

Geneus sighed. "I have to admit that that was a bit foolish on my part. A wasted lifetime in many ways. I sacrificed a great deal, and gained almost nothing. This time, I intend to do better." He kissed the palm of my hand, then released it. "Truth be told, the sense of Geneus Stornway and myself being the same person has been fading, these past few weeks. The oldest memories engage me more strongly now than his. That development . . . does not entirely displease me." 

Changes in the structure of his brain when I'd reconstituted his body in its old form? _I doubt he knows for certain either._ His personality didn't seem very different to me, except that a lot of the pain he'd been lugging around with him had drained away . . . but then it was possible that the aspects of him to which I was most attracted had always arisen from the underlying personality of the Original Sage. 

"If it makes you happy, then I'm glad," I said sincerely. 

"Happiness lies in being with those you love." He smiled at me, and I flushed with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. 

"Are you going to go back to using your old name?" I asked, scrabbling for a different subject. 

"I think . . . not," he said slowly. "Or, not publicly. The Great Sage has been nameless these four thousand years. Better, I think, that he remain so. And less likely to cause any argument. If this is to be my last incarnation—" Suddenly, he stiffened, and his face went . . . extremely expressionless. 

"What's wrong?" I asked. 

"The tie between my memory and my soul is still in place. I had not bothered to check for it before, since logically it should no longer exist." 

I blinked. _When it isn't even the_ same _soul? That doesn't make sense._

Geneus' eyes unfocussed slightly. "The technique must operate primarily on the psyche. A dangling tie that, having been torn loose from its original endpoint, sought another . . ." He blinked, and became . . . present again. "Unfortunately, the source from which I learned how to bind souls was . . . fragmentary. In many cases, I have only a recipe—a set of instructions to be followed by rote, without true understanding." 

I took a deep breath, because this might turn out to be the most important thing I had ever said. "Teach me." 

A slight shake of the head. "Normally I would not say this, but in this case I truly think it is better that the knowledge be lost." 

Another deep breath. "If you . . . decide not to continue . . . then someone else needs to know how to break the binding, in case you can't do it yourself. Murata's human, so he'll probably predecease you. It has to be me. And if you decide to leave the tie intact, then . . . I'm going with you." 

His eyes went wider than I'd thought they were capable of, and he froze in place again. "Shouri . . . You do not know what that will do to you." 

"No, I don't," I admitted. "Not really. But I do know that I will find you again, no matter who we become or how many years it takes." 

"Most likely, the people we became would have no interest in each other." 

"I don't think so. For all those years, you never stopped loving Shin'ou. You may have hated him too, from time to time, but I'll bet that you were never indifferent to him. And I feel that the link between us is just as powerful as the one between you and him. From the first moment we met, part of me has been focused on you in a way I've never experienced before. I don't understand it," I admitted, "and I don't think I can describe it. I . . . don't think it's as simple as just being in love with you, although I certainly am. There's something in me that you . . . complete." 

Geneus wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I let him pull me into a tight embrace. "Give me a little time," he said. "I need to think, and to decide. I do not want to draw you into this with me, and yet the only thing I fear more than remembering . . . is forgetting. Ironic, is it not? My memories have torn apart the minds of several of my incarnations, and yet the idea of letting them go . . ." 

I hugged him back, feeling the black silk of his hair slide over now-clean fingers. "It's perfectly normal to want to survive. Even if you do it in an extraordinary way. Everything alive fights to keep on living. It's . . . just natural." The muscles of his back were knotted up, rock hard, and I stroked them, trying to loosen them. "Don't worry about me. I may be younger than you are, and . . . less, but if I follow you in this, it'll be by my own choice. And maybe I won't have the chance, or maybe I'll chicken out, or maybe a couple of centuries from now, you'll change your mind about what you want. But I want to have the option." 

"I would not call it survival," Geneus murmured. "Not as such. More like packing a message in a bottle, where that message consists of everything you remember. My current . . . identification with my former self is the exception, not the rule. And you may be younger than I, but you are certainly _not_ less," he added, more forcefully. 

"Then you'll explain to me how to do it." 

I knew he'd given in the moment his muscles relaxed. "When you reach the point of being able to understand the explanation, yes. But even with your intelligence and dedication, that may not be for years. Dealing with souls in any way requires . . . a certain amount of abstract theoretical information. You will have a great deal of reading to do once we get back to Shin Makoku, assuming that I can find copies of the appropriate texts." 

"I'll look forward to it." 

"I may be studying alongside you," Geneus added wryly. "Or at least, I would hope that there have been some advances in the theory and practice of working with majutsu over the past two thousand years. At the time of my last incarnation in Shin Makoku, we still had not recovered all the knowledge the Originators destroyed." 

I winced slightly at the word _Originators_. "We should get up," I said with a grimace. "Before someone comes looking for us and they chop the door down. And I need you to teach me how to phone Yuuri, now that my maryoku's back up to reasonable levels." 

"Phone?" Geneus relaxed his grip on me, pulling back just enough that we could see each other's faces. His eyebrows were drawn together in puzzlement. 

"Sorry—there's a device on Earth called a 'telephone' that's used for communication over distances," I explained. 

"Ah. Well, then. Certainly we must 'phone' your brother, but I would like to collect Lieutenant Gurrier first. He may have learned something more during the night." 

Josak had to have gone into spy mode again, however, because two hours of fruitless searching failed to turn him up. In the end, we gave up and had lunch together in a small sitting room, then went out to the garden, with its pond. It was just barely warm enough today that the water had no ice fringing it, but the wind was biting. Thankfully, Geneus threw his arm around me at the first convulsive shiver, and he must have been using fire majutsu again, because I could feel the warmth of his body even through both our shirts. 

"You already know how to reach through the water," he prompted. "Do so, and seek your brother." 

I closed my eyes. Through the water . . . into that ocean . . . That first step was easy this time, surprisingly so, but finding Yuuri . . . wasn't. I'd never intentionally touched him with my maryoku, so I didn't know what to look for—didn't know what he felt like. The best I could do was try to lock on to the thought of his face and his personality, and that spent me spinning among the dark currents. How in hell did Yuuri do this so naturally, without even seeming to think about it? He'd been able to get us into the water stores aboard a ship he had never visited and whose patterns he in no way knew . . . Had he been subconsciously been homing in on whatever power signature Saralegui and Beryes spilled, and was that why we'd ended up on the wrong boat? 

Power signatures . . . There was one person in Shin Makoku whose power I might be able to recognize, although I didn't like the thought. I took a deep breath and began feeling around for something that was like Geneus. I found the man himself first, of course, standing right beside me, but there had to be another, more distant and subtly different . . . _There_. That dim radiance, so much like Geneus' yet lesser in magnitude, had to be Murata, and the strong power close to him, radiating into the water like a beacon . . . that had to be Yuuri. 

"I think I have him," I said, opening my eyes. 

"If you do not, the unfortunate at the other end is likely to be rather startled," Geneus murmured. I snorted. "Very well. You need to link whatever water is nearest him to the pond, and then invert their reflections, so that your brother sees what now shows on the surface of the pond, and we see—" 

"—him," I finished. "Okay, I think I can manage that." I was getting better at the mental sleight-of-hand that was needed to make two places into the same place . . . and really, when you were talking about two parts of the same ocean, was it such a stretch? The same water molecules probably ended up in both, at one time or another . . . 

"—ook!" Wolfram's voice suddenly came through sharp and clear, and blinking down at the water, I could see . . . _Oh, hell._ Apparently, I'd caught Yuuri in the royal baths at Blood Pledge Castle. Well, nothing to do now but go through with it. 

"Yuuri!" 

"Shouri! What the—" My brother's arms shot up to cover his bare chest. I wondered if anyone had ever told him how feminine a reaction that was . . . ? 

"We apologize for intruding on you in this extraordinary fashion, Your Majesty, but there are some things your brother and I believe you should know," Geneus said evenly. 

"Great S—" Wolfram said, and abruptly vanished from the picture as he removed his hand from Yuuri's shoulder. A moment later, Murata popped in on Yuuri's other side. 

"A water mirror, huh? You're getting to be pretty good at this, Shibuya's-big-brother." 

"I've been working on it pretty hard, friend-of-my-brother," I said. 

"Still, it's impressive that you've gotten this far in so short a time," Murata said, with that goofy, skewed smile of his. "Most Mazoku never learn magic this complicated, even if they have enough power to pull it off. How does it feel to be the second most powerful water-user in Shin Makoku?" 

Yuuri saved me from having to answer that. "Shouri, where have you _been_? When I went home last week, I had to tell Mom that you had gone off on your own, and I didn't know exactly where you were, or what you were doing!" 

"Give me a break," I said. "Josak sent both of his birds back, so you _should_ have gotten progress reports." 

Murata tilted his head so that the light reflected off his glasses and obscured his eyes. "Well, some of the stuff Josak-san wrote in there was—" 

Yuuri shot his friend a Look. "You decided not to tell me again, didn't you? Murata—" 

"We just didn't want you to worry," Murata said. "It looked like things were getting pretty dicey there for a while, but I guess it must have been a false alarm." 

I shook my head. "No false alarm. There was another Originator in northern Cimaron. Don't worry, though—it's already been dealt with." 

Yuuri's face was . . . a study. He never had been good at concealing his emotions. 

"It was far weaker than the one we fought four thousand years ago," Geneus put in. "The Shinzoku holy sword had been keeping it quiescent for the last several centuries, and I believe that effect was intentional." 

"What are you saying?" Now Yuuri just looked confused. 

I took a deep breath. "Either the Shinzoku have fought Originators before . . . or the Originators came from Seisakoku in the first place. There's more, too. There was a soul tangled up in the damned thing, and I was able to talk to it for a bit. It was a woman in its last life, and she had died pretty horribly. And she definitely wasn't Shinzoku. Mazoku, maybe. I promised her that if there was any way that I could help put things right, I would. So it looks like we may be going on to Seisakoku." 

I'd phrased all of that very carefully, hoping to keep Yuuri from realizing that he'd probably destroyed a soul when he'd killed that other Originator. From the look on his face, I'd probably been successful. Murata had understood, though—I could tell from his expression, and the slight nod he gave me. 

"That's part one," I continued. "Part two has to do with the assassins. The Originator's host was Lord Bernhardt von Radford, who's been missing from Shin Makoku for around four hundred years. His son and daughter were behind the more ineffectual assassination attempts—they were trying to buy time, not seriously kill anyone. The daughter's still at large somewhere, probably in Radford Province, unless Gwendal caught her without telling you. She may not know that we destroyed the Originator and freed her father." 

"Gwendal's been away for a while now—he said there was something he had to take care of in Spitzweg Province . . ." 

" . . . which shares a border with Radford," Geneus completed. "I think we are safe in saying that he has gone after our renegade, and concealed the matter from you to lessen your worries. However, it is the other assassins we must concern ourselves with." 

"The other . . . My brain is starting to hurt," Yuuri mumbled. 

"Suck it up, because you need to know this," I said. "It wasn't the von Radfords who staged the attack on Blood Pledge Castle. It was someone else. We think they were probably Shinzoku who wanted Saralegui dead—Beryes and Alazon say that there's a strong racial-purity faction among the Shinzoku, who may also have killed Saralegui's twin brother when they were both infants. I don't think we mentioned—we found Alazon as a prisoner of the von Radfords, and we're in Small Cimaron right now. Which brings us to part three." 

"There's more? Ugh." 

"Don't worry," I said. "This is the last part." _Unless you count the fact that I'm sleeping with the guy who trashed your capital city._ But Yuuri didn't need to know about that yet. What I had to say next was going to be bad enough. "Lanzhil's coming here. Today. I'm not quite sure whether Saralegui invited him or Lanzhil invited himself, but we think he may not make it back out alive." 

"Why do I think you _don't_ mean that he's allergic to something in the water?" Yuuri asked with a grimace. "I wish I could say that Sara isn't that kind of person, but he . . . gets bad ideas sometimes. Can you . . . hold him off, or something, until I get there? If we take Anissina's Evil-Super-Fast-kun Mark X, or whatever she's calling it right now, we ought to be able to get there by tonight . . ." 

"Whoa, there. Wait just a minute. Who said anything about _you_ coming here? It's still dangerous." 

"If Saralegui does make an attempt on Lanzhil's life, someone is likely to attempt to pin it on Shin Makoku," Geneus added. "If you are here when that takes place, Your Majesty, you will be the natural target for their anger." 

Unfortunately, Yuuri was getting a familiar stubborn look on his face. "I'm not going to stay away just because of that!" 

Geneus shifted against me as he made a shallow bow. "My Lord Maoh, you are not mine to command. I only ask that you weigh matters carefully. If you attempt to save everyone, everywhere, at all times, you will destroy yourself. Even with your powers, saving the people of this world from themselves is more than one man is capable of." 

Yuuri's smile was . . . oddly mature. I'd never seen such an expression on his face before. _Maybe Shin Makoku's been good for him, after all._ "I figured that out a while back. But I think I can save _Sara_ from himself. More than that, I _have_ to, because he hasn't got anyone else. The only person he's close to is Beryes, who won't overrule him." 

I still wanted to argue, but I was pretty sure Yuuri had gone beyond the point where I could persuade him. The words, _I can walk by myself!_ echoed in my memory. Short of hitting him over the head by manipulating the bathwater, there wouldn't be much I could do to stop him. Worst case, I should be able to get him out of here the way we'd gotten in, even if he couldn't manage intra-world water portals for himself. 

I sighed. "Okay, then. If you really believe it's the best thing to do, come here. Just . . . make sure you bring Conrad along, okay? It _really_ isn't safe here." 

Murata stirred. "I'll be coming with him too, if that helps." 

"—talking about?! You can't be thinking of going to Cimaron now, wimp!" Wolfram's voice (and his body) cut in abruptly as he grabbed Yuuri by the arm. 

"Um, I think I'd better go. Take-care-of-yourself-and-see-you-this-evening!" Yuuri fired off. Then the image broke up into ripples—I think Wolfram must have started a water fight. I sighed and let the water mirror lapse. 

As the spell flickered and faded, Geneus turned me to face him, cupping one hand along the side of my jaw. "You look unhappy." 

"I hate it when Yuuri insists on putting himself in danger," I said. "He may _say_ he knows he can't always save everyone, but I know for a fact that he doesn't _feel_ it, deep down inside. And so far, he's always gotten away with being stupid. I just . . . I don't want to think about what's going to happen the first time he fails." 

"All we can do is try to keep him from failing _this time_ ," Geneus said. "And comfort him if he does." 

I sighed. "I know. It's just that it makes me feel . . . inadequate." 

"But there is more to your worries than that, I think." 

"Wolfram," I admitted with a grimace. "The way he treats Yuuri, it's just . . . And the worst part is that Yuuri doesn't even try to protect himself. He just runs away, or stands there and takes it." 

"I suspect that the problem is rooted in young von Bielefelt's expectations. A full-blooded Mazoku of your brother's appearance would be in his mid-twenties at least. Von Bielefelt is subconsciously expecting him to have more life experience than he possesses. And furthermore, either your brother's sexual and emotional development is lagging his physical growth to some extent, or his pair-bonding instinct is subdued to begin with. He does not understand why von Bielefelt would be so jealous over what he perceives as innocent actions. That they are from different cultures whose definitions of flirtation are unlikely to agree with each other only adds to the difficulty." 

"Confusion doesn't explain why Yuuri never tries to defend himself," I said. 

"In the beginning, he most likely made the attempt. Since then, he has given it up as pointless—any successful defense he might mount would run the risk of injuring someone he considers a friend." 

_A friend. I think he's right and that's really all they are to each other, at least for now._

"If young von Bielefelt comes here, I will endeavour to steer him aside and explain . . . although it occurs to me that there is another who should have done so already," Geneus said with a frown. 

"Murata . . . seems to prefer not to interfere much. He'll make plans or give advice about other things sometimes, but when it comes to people's personal lives, he makes excuses, then heads up to the temple to hide. Claims he doesn't want people to depend on the past, but if it were really that, you'd think he'd butt out entirely." 

Geneus grimaced. "I suppose I must attempt to remember that his _personality_ is adolescent. I keep expecting him to be a mirror, but he has withdrawn so much of his true self that I feel like I am searching for my reflection in a darkened room . . ." 

As the sentence trailed off, I leaned in and stole a kiss. There was a flicker of surprised pleasure in his eyes as he responded, lips parting invitingly under mine. I accepted the invitation, and we ended up locked together until a sudden gust of wind made me shiver. 

"We should go inside," Geneus murmured. "Having you catch cold would not make matters any easier." 

"Yeah." 

We ended up in the library, which we'd only visited for a few moments the previous day. Apparently it was a good one, because Geneus worked his way along the shelves with every evidence of pleasure—delight, even—and ended up with a stack of heavy, leather-bound volumes in his arms. He thumped them down in a pile on the table in the center of the room, and silently offered me one. 

"'A History of Small Cimaron'," I read out loud as I took it. 

"It seems to be a reasonably contemporary work, published since the beginning of Saralegui's reign," Geneus said. "I am curious as to what it has to say about him—and about his father." 

I nodded, because I had to admit to being a bit curious myself about what kind of man would have captivated someone like Alazon. "And these?" I gestured at the rest of his stack. 

"Other recent history, although mostly of Big Cimaron. The White Crow had an excellent library of houjutsu-related materials, but very little on anything else, so my knowledge of the modern era is . . . not as comprehensive as I would like." 

There were armchairs scattered around the room, and we each settled into one with a lapful of book. I still couldn't extract any meaning from the text without reading aloud, although I was starting to recognize some simple words, like "and". 

The book I was working on was dry as dust—kind of like my high school history text—and try though I might, it was difficult to keep my attention on it. My whispering voice would fade into silence whenever I was foolish enough to raise my eyes from the page for a moment to look at Geneus. I'd get hung up on admiring the way the light fell across his face and hair, or the graceful movement of his hand as he turned a page. He was beautiful, and he was _mine_ , and I still wasn't used to the idea—couldn't take him for granted. Not yet. 

Patience and sheer bloody-minded effort let me plow through a couple of chapters on the reign of Saralegui's grandfather, but after that I rubbed my eyes and set the book aside. _Time for a break, and to blow off some of my nervous energy._

"I'm going for a walk," I said. 

Geneus looked up from his book. "Be certain you keep to the public areas," he said seriously. "I would not wish to touch on anything Saralegui wishes to hide." 

"Yeah." What Saralegui would do to protect his secrets . . . Even thinking about it made me nervous. The young king was like a rabid fox, cunning and dangerous. Yuuri had to be crazy to consider him a friend. My stomach suddenly twisted. Where was Josak? He'd been conspicuously missing for hours now. He'd been Shin Makoku's premier spy almost longer than I'd been alive, so surely he hadn't been caught poking around somewhere he shouldn't have been . . . had he? "I'll be careful." 

"I will doubtless see you at lunch, then." 

"Yeah." And I forced myself to turn away and walk out into the hall. 

For the first ten minutes or so, I just wandered the hallways—there were lots of them, so sticking to the wider, well-lit ones not blocked off by guards wasn't a problem. I found the portrait hall again, and had a look at Saralegui's grandfather, who'd been a sour, balding middle-aged man at the time he'd been painted. He'd also had a nose like a hatchet, which had been toned down in his son and again in his grandson. 

Faintly, somewhere far away, I heard the sound of clashing weapons. I hesitated for a moment—if it had something to do with Josak, I needed to get involved, but if it was something unrelated . . . Well, my maryoku was mostly back, so unless it was an entire army—and it certainly didn't _sound_ like one—I shouldn't be at risk of anything worse than embarrassment. 

I began to walk quickly toward the sound, my hand resting lightly on the hilt of my sword. After a minute or two, I found myself in an area of the palace that I hadn't visited with Geneus. Given that the hallways were still wide, well-lit, unguarded, and largely empty, I didn't think there was a problem with my being there, though. 

By the time I'd stopped at an intersection, trying to figure out which way to go, I'd decided that there were only two people fighting, and they seemed to be taking periodic breaks. A practice session? But I was pretty sure we were nowhere near the guard barracks . . . 

Down one more short hall, around a corner . . . and I was suddenly out on a balcony, a storey above the floor of a large room. It might have been the ballroom we'd passed through last night, although I'd approached it this time from a completely different angle. And down below, two figures circled one another, although it was certainly no dance they were performing. One was small, slender, and blonde. The other was tall, with green hair tied firmly back from his face. 

"Keep your guard up," Beryes said. 

"I'm trying." Saralegui sounded like he was out of breath. "I should have . . . returned to working on this . . . years ago. It's probably too . . . late now for me . . . to be any good." 

Beryes shook his head. "You're well-coordinated and quick. We just need to work on your stamina." 

"That might end up . . . being the death of me. Ugh." Saralegui flopped down on his back on the floor. His eyes fastened on mine through his glasses, and he winked. "Lord Shouri, if you'd like to come down and join us, there are stairs to your right." 

And there were, I ascertained with a quick glance. 

"Your Majesty, you really shouldn't—" 

"We _are_ alone here, Beryes, and if anyone does barge in, I'll ensure he doesn't remember seeing me this way. As for Shouri, he doesn't strike me as the type who would be so petty as to use such a trivial secret for blackmail." 

"I'd rather keep my neck in one piece, thanks," I called down, and began to descend the stairs to the sound of Saralegui's laughter. 

"Really, Lord Shouri, you make me sound like some kind of ogre." 

I shook my head. "Ogres are big and stupid. I'd take on ten of them before I'd challenge you over something that didn't really matter. They're a lot easier to deal with." At the bottom of the staircase, the heels of my rather battered boots clicked on polished wood. 

Saralegui smirked. "So you think I'm more dangerous because I'm small?" 

"Small, subtle, persuasive, and conniving," I said bluntly, and the young king laughed again. 

"And here I thought that Yuuri was the tactless one in your family." 

"The best weapon against someone like you is the naked truth," I replied. "Something you can't slither around." 

"So I'm a serpent now?" 

"Where I come from, they say that the pretty, brightly coloured snakes are the most poisonous ones." 

"Oh, you are amusing, aren't you? Not in the same way as your brother, though. I rather regret that we haven't had the opportunity for a proper conversation before." Saralegui offered me a seemingly guileless grin. I smiled back at him, but I suspect my eyes showed no more humour than his. Respect, maybe, and wariness. 

Beryes cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, if we might resume . . . ?" 

"Actually . . . Shouri, I wonder if I might borrow you as a sparring partner?" 

"I'm not very good," I warned him. 

Saralegui sighed. "That may be all to the good. Beryes tries, but he outclasses me by so much that it's difficult to feel like I'm making any progress at this." 

"Why the sudden urge to become a swordsman?" I asked as the young king, slowly and with a lot of wincing, got himself up off the floor. 

"Ah, well, you see . . . in an odd way, that's your brother's fault. I look at Yuuri, and I see . . . someone even younger than I am, but who has the respect of everyone around him. I, on the other hand, am considered little more than a figurehead by the other men here. And part of the reason for that is my utter lack of battle skills. It's useful to be underestimated, but I find I'm getting a bit tired of it." His smile this time was crooked, a bit more genuine than the previous wide, empty grins. "It doesn't help that I am, as you said, small and pretty." 

"Give yourself a few more years," Beryes said unexpectedly. "At your age, I was no taller." 

Saralegui blinked. "Hmm. Really?" 

"Shinzoku are prone to late growth spurts. You may not reach your full height until you're twenty-five, but your father and grandfather were both tall." 

"What a . . . peculiar thought." Saralegui touched the top of his head, as though expecting the predicted growth spurt to happen all at once, and immediately. "Still, that doesn't help me much right now. Lord Shouri? Are you ready?" 

I drew my sword. Beside Saralegui's narrow blade, it looked heavy and clumsy, but I shifted my stance unthinkingly as magic flowed through my body. A blade that slender would be easy to knock aside. I might even break it if I hit it hard enough. 

We lunged at each other, and I had to admit that even if Geneus' spell hadn't transferred more than a tenth of Conrad's expertise to me, Saralegui was still worse. At one point, Beryes had to jump in and deflect my blade to keep his young charge from impaling himself on it as he stumbled. And it probably didn't help that the young king was already tired. 

It took me less than five minutes to knock the blade from Saralegui's hand and send it skidding across the floor. The young king immediately held up empty hands. 

"I surrender! And if you're not very good, then a six-year-old girl with a stick could probably beat me!" 

"Lord Weller trained him," Beryes said. 

I licked my lips. "Not exactly. It's a cheat." 

Beryes frowned. "In what way? Your style is less refined, but it's unmistakably the same." 

"Try this," I said, offering him my sword. 

Saralegui took it instead. He needed both hands just to hold it up, but as he closed them around it, his stance shifted into something more balanced. "How very interesting." He swung the blade from side to side. "I'm not strong enough to use it properly, but I can feel what the right way _is_ , which was more than I knew a few moments ago. Is this . . . a treasure of Shin Makoku? Enchanted swords aren't all that common, and most of them don't do anything nearly so useful." 

_Common enough for the White Crow to collect a bushel of them, or so Yuuri said._ But Saralegui doubtless knew that, too. "It's something Geneus cooked up for me. He did use Lord Weller as a pattern, but more because Conrad and I have similar builds than because he's the best swordsman in Shin Makoku." 

"Interesting. It appears that history has not exaggerated the Great Sage's abilities. I don't suppose you could persuade him to make one of these for me . . . ?" 

I shrugged. "You would have to ask him. And if he agreed, you'd have to find not only a good swordsman of around your size, but also a chunk of maseki about so big—" I curled my fingers to indicate the dimensions of the stone Geneus had used. "—within the next couple of days." 

Saralegui sighed soulfully. "Unfortunately, maseki is hard to come by in this part of the world. And I suppose that you're still at risk of this sword being damaged, lost, or stolen." 

"I've been trying to train what it gives me into my own body, but it's slow going." I held out my hand pointedly, half-expecting that Saralegui would try to run me through, but all he did was hand the sword back. I slid it into its scabbard. 

"You may be succeeding better than you believe," Beryes said. "You're moving much more easily now than you were when we met you in Shin Makoku." 

I blinked, absorbing that. Moving more easily . . . The sword, my daily practice with Josak while we'd been on the trail . . . maybe even my maryoku's tuning of my body? And what did "more easily" really mean, anyway? 

Another change. Another subtle difference. Another thing separating the person I was now from the one I had been in Japan. The thought of going back there, of locking myself into that lonely shell again, was suddenly terrifying, and I shuddered convulsively, then shook my head to rid myself of the idea. I _wouldn't_ be alone, I told myself fiercely. I knew how travel between the worlds worked now, more or less, even if I hadn't tried it yet. I would be able to come back to this world every damned _night_ , if I wanted to, and sleep in Geneus' arms. 

"Lord Shouri? Are you alright?" 

"Just an unpleasant thought," I said, cursing myself for having lost control in front of Saralegui, even for a split second. 

Somewhere far away, a bell rang. 

"Of course, you'll have to join us for lunch," Saralegui said. "After that, I have to get ready for the reception." He delivered another one of those theatrical sighs—almost everything he did seemed to be for effect. "A king's duty—I have to be there from the moment Lanzhil steps down from his coach." 

I snorted. "Making yourself look slavishly subordinate and harmless." 

Another one of those empty smiles. "As you say. Lanzhil's gifts in the area of subtlety are . . . limited. He can sometimes see past one layer of misdirection, but present him with two and he becomes confused. It's hardly surprising that his marriage was an unhappy one." 

"Was?" It was, I hoped, a safe enough question, unlike _Why the sudden change of topic?_

"His wife died during the struggle over the throne after Belal . . . vacated it. Officially, it was of natural causes—she did have a weak heart." 

And unofficially, it had probably been a reprisal for someone else's death—feed her a tiny bit of this world's nearest equivalent of foxglove, and watch her drop over dead from a heart attack. "I see." 

"Yes, I expect you probably do. They don't think his daughter inherited the defect, though. I understand she's really looking forward to seeing Small Cimaron. She's twelve years old and supposedly quite energetic." 

I slammed down my best poker face. Saralegui had just handed me the missing piece, the reason why he would move against Lanzhil _now_ rather than later: the opportunity to wipe out the king and simultaneously create a veneer of legitimacy for his bid for the throne of Big Cimaron by forcing a marriage or betrothal on the daughter. And I didn't doubt that he'd given me the information deliberately. Behind that bland smile, he was just daring me to stop him . . . or maybe he was just planning to court the daughter in a more conventional way, and he was messing with my head, hoping that I would do something stupid. 

I had to talk to Geneus, but I couldn't not go to lunch with Saralegui, so we likely wouldn't have a private moment together until after Lanzhil had arrived. And where in _hell_ was Josak?


	25. Chapter 20

I adjusted the jacket yet again and frowned into the mirror. I'd probably fit right in at the reception, but I still felt slightly embarrassed. Dressing up was one thing, but that damned tailor had loaded on the silver braid until I looked like a refugee from a bad manga. And the cravat felt wrong, and my new boots were stiff, and . . . 

"I agree that gilding the leather was a bit much," Geneus murmured beside me. "However, you have the presence to carry it off, if you can control your embarrassment." 

I fingered the tooled leather of my new swordbelt, its swirling patterns emphasized with silver-gilt, and grimaced. There were bands of the same kind of work edging the tops of my boots, intermixed with the mer-lion crest of Shin Makoku. For the finishing touch, Saralegui had had someone find an oval brooch nearly four centimetres wide, a blue stone in a silver setting, and the manservant who had helped dress me had pinned it through the cravat. It was way too much . . . but I forced myself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, squaring my shoulders and relaxing my expression. I felt ridiculous in a tux, too, but I'd pulled off wearing one more than once. 

When I allowed my eyes to focus on the mirror again, the difference was . . . startling. The silver braid was still maybe a bit much, but the cut of the jacket was just as flattering as it had been during the fitting, and my reflection's calm, confident expression was anything but ridiculous. I wasn't going to be an embarrassment to the country that my brother ruled, and that Geneus loved. 

Geneus himself seemed perfectly at ease in the clothing Saralegui had copied from that ancient portrait. Only his eyes spoke of discomfort, of worry. I wondered what he was thinking. I'd been able to snatch a few moments on the way back from lunch to tell him about my conversation with Saralegui, but there hadn't been time to discuss its ramifications. 

The servant waiting in the doorway cleared his throat. "If you are ready, my lords?" 

"Shall we?" Geneus asked with a quiet smile, offering me his hand. 

"We may as well." 

I concentrated on the feel of his hand gripping mine—the strength of it, the scar on the back and the light hint of callus across the palm. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen him wearing gloves. Perhaps he didn't feel he needed their protection anymore. 

" _Lord Shouri Shibuya, brother of the twenty-seventh Maoh of Shin Makoku! Lord Geneus, advisor to the throne of Shin Makoku!_ " 

Everyone turned to stare at us as the herald announced us. I lifted my chin and let Geneus' hand go. _Let them stare._ Most of the assembled courtiers seemed more shocked than anything—most royal receptions in Small Cimaron probably didn't include a pair of double-blacks, or any admitted representatives of Shin Makoku at all. And that might have been the only reason Saralegui had wanted us there . . . except for the one pair of eyes that paused only briefly at "shock" before moving on to "hatred". Thirtyish, brown-haired, elaborately dressed and coiffed, with a small beard cut close to his chin . . . I'd never seen Lanzhil II of Big Cimaron before, but I had heard descriptions and this man fit them. 

The girl beside him was . . . adolescently awkward, I guess: slender and gawky and with hands just a little too big for the rest of her. Her face was still childishly rounded. I guess she might have been pretty enough, if you went for little kids. Her brown hair and eyes matched her father's, and the frilly pale pink dress she was wearing didn't suit her at all. She was staring intensely at . . . me? And with a hazy look in her eyes and a slightly goofy smile on her face . . . _Oh, hell, I hope that isn't a developing crush I see._ That fact that I wasn't interested aside, Lanzhil would probably flip out. 

I followed Geneus as he drifted over to the buffet and took a glass of wine. The servant doing the pouring didn't bat an eyelash as I snagged one for myself—I wasn't intending to drink the thing anyway, just use it as a prop, but it was nice not having to use some kind of dodge to get past the fact that I was still technically underage. Other countries let you drink alcohol before you're twenty-one, but not Japan, and I still had a bit more than a year to go. 

Or actually, a bit _less_ than a year, I realized suddenly. Or, a bit less than a year, sort of. I'd been in this world long enough and often enough now that my Earth-calendar age was a month or so out of sync with my actual age, and according to the best of my calculations, my twentieth birthday had been yesterday. _Well, I certainly got one hell of a present,_ I thought, glancing at Geneus . . . and trying not to remember the details, because I didn't need Little Shouri perking up just now. 

"Lord Shouri, Lord Geneus. I'm pleased that you could join us." 

Heroically, I forced myself not to flinch. I hadn't noticed Saralegui's approach, but then the little bastard was short, and there were a lot of people in the room . . . 

"Forgive us for being late," Geneus said. "We were unavoidably detained." Which I suppose was more polite than, "Your minions didn't come to get us until after the reception had started." 

Where was Beryes? Normally the tall Shinzoku stuck so close to his nephew that you couldn't talk to one without the other, but not this time. A quick scan of the room found him half-hidden by an ornamental pillar and some folds of drapery, watching his charge with his usual stoic expression. Clearly, he didn't think Saralegui was in danger . . . or at least, not physical danger. 

I glimpsed a moving object out of the corner of my eye just in time to take a step back before the thrown wineglass shattered on the floor, spattering dark red liquid everywhere. I glanced back along its trajectory and discovered a red-faced Lanzhil stalking in our direction. 

"My, my," Saralegui murmured. "The wine must not be to his liking." 

Laughing would have been a bad idea, so I bit down gently on my tongue as Lanzhil came to a stop beside me and thrust a pointing finger into Geneus' face. 

"You!" 

Geneus coolly raised an eyebrow. "I?" 

"You tricked me! Filthy Mazoku—" 

Geneus raised his hand, invoking wind majutsu, and the air around us suddenly became very still, the sound from the rest of the room cut off by an invisible wall. "Your Majesty might with to consider, before you say anything further, whether you desire others to know how and why we were previously acquainted." 

Lanzhil was almost purple with rage. "I'll kill you!" 

"Oh dear," Saralegui murmured. "Another war? And so soon after the last one, too. Naturally, I can lease my brother king some troop transports at a very reasonable price—" 

" _Argh!!_ " 

"Your Majesty, I would suggest calming yourself before you burst a blood vessel," Geneus said, with surprising gentleness. "If you were to die of such a ridiculous affliction, there would be civil war in Big Cimaron, and that does not truly suit the Maoh's desires." 

Lanzhil was now pop-eyed as well as purple, his mouth moving silently. 

Geneus took a reflective sip of his wine. "His Majesty values the lives of all people, including those who serve you, and he would prefer not to see them harmed. He has never been interested in going to war with you." 

"He's been making alliances with every nation he can find, including our vassals! How can there be no hostile intent in that?" But the purple was slowly fading to brick red. 

I sighed. "You know, where Yuuri and I come from, there's this concept called 'projection'. It refers to people seeing themselves—their own motivations and desires—when looking at others who may have completely different reasons for doing what they do. My brother wanted the Shin Makoku Alliance to encourage dialogue between the member nations. The only reason it's become defensive is that Big Cimaron has been trying to push other countries around. Hell, he even wanted to invite you to join, but Belal was too power-drunk to listen, and then he started messing with the Forbidden Boxes and got his mind cored by what was inside." 

Lanzhil's eyes narrowed. "You went head-to-head with us over those same Boxes." At least he was starting to _think_ again. 

"Because you intended to use them as tools of war, without having any understanding of the danger," Geneus said. "'The end of the world'—those were just words to you, but not to us. There are still a few in Shin Makoku who remember what it means to stand on that brink, and we could not permit those Boxes to be opened prematurely and outside our control . . . even if stopping it cost us our lives and those of everyone we had ever loved." 

"Outside _your_ control? Typical of you arrogant bastards." 

Geneus met Lanzhil's eyes for the first time, and whatever he saw there caused the king of Big Cimaron to take a step back. "I have given everything I had, these past four thousand years, with the solitary goal of seeing what was inside those boxes destroyed. Do you truly believe we would have permitted a group of jealous, ignorant children to get in the way of that? _None of it was ever about you._ " 

I touched Geneus' arm lightly, a reminder that he wasn't alone. When his gaze snapped around to me, it was almost a physical shock. I'd seen those eyes burning before, with light and life—with pleasure and with love—but that had been a warming fire, and this was more like that damned flaming lion Wolfram loved to call up, powerful and destructive. But even as I saw it, Geneus damped it down again, back to that familiar warmth. He offered me a wry, affectionate smile before turning back to Lanzhil. 

"In any case, it is over and done with," he said. "We have no further quarrel with you, and no desire for war. Our Maoh's vision for the future may not be the one you would have chosen, left to yourself . . . but your people seem to be more interested in peace than war, and giving them what they want might serve to make your position more secure." 

Lanzhil sneered, but all he said was, "Hmph." 

There was a disturbance taking place over by the door. I couldn't hear it, but I could see it. Then Geneus dismissed the wind majutsu that had been shielding our conversation from the rest of the room, and the sound rushed back just in time for me to hear the herald announce in a rather strangled tone, "—een of Seisakoku and mother of King Saralegui!" 

Saralegui, still standing beside us, froze as Alazon entered the room and everyone else turned to stare. 

Whatever dressmaker had been found for her had done a superb job, crafting a subdued but regal gown of white fabric with purple accents. Her hair had been twisted back into the complex style that I remembered, and she walked with her spine straight and her head high. There was nothing about her that even suggested that a few days ago, she had been a prisoner, chained to the wall of a cave and forced to stand in her own filth. 

Lanzhil, I noted, had turned away from this vision to stare at Saralegui instead. He was probably tired of the slender blonde youth pulling formidable allies out of the woodwork . . . but I don't think he realized, even then, just how dangerous Saralegui really was. Geneus was watching both Saralegui and Lanzhil, and while his expression was neutral, his eyes were laughing—enjoying the upset, I guess, or maybe just the knowledge that he no longer had to pretend subservience or do the political equivalent of picking Lanzhil up and wiping his nose off. Even pretending to work for that man had to have been pure torture for him. 

Saralegui took a long, shuddering breath and seemed to collect himself. He offered us a shrug and a small smile. "I couldn't very well forbid her to come." 

"Had you attempted to do so, she would not have listened," Geneus said. "However, she would not have shown herself for no reason. If she wishes to ease Seisakoku from its isolation, an official contact with her son's kingdom would be an obvious first step. Or she may be seeking refuge, depending on precisely what she expects to find upon returning home." 

Saralegui smiled one of his bland little smiles. "Hmmm. Lord Geneus, do you play _zhiba_?" 

Geneus matched the bland smile with one of his own. "On occasion." 

"We really must have a game before you leave, then. In the meanwhile, I fear I can't let it look like I'm neglecting my other guests." Saralegui bowed to us, then turned and drifted off toward the group of women and girls that was beginning to form around Alazon . . . which Lanzhil's daughter had just joined, I noticed. 

" _Zhiba_?" I asked. 

Geneus took another sip of his wine. "A board game, focused on strategic control of locations and pieces." 

Like chess, then, or maybe _go_? "I take it you're good at it." 

He shrugged. "Truth be told, I find it difficult to concentrate when the stakes are so low." 

"Why are you two here?" 

I'd almost forgotten about Lanzhil. Beside Saralegui, the older man was an insignificant threat. Even if he had a bigger army to back him up. 

"Personal business," I said. 

"With that insolent brat? I don't believe you." Lanzhil narrowed his eyes. "It's the woman, isn't it? If she really is a queen, then . . . The Maoh probably wants—" 

"Our business is with King Saralegui's personal attendant," Geneus said, and again there was a hint of laughter in his eyes. "We are not official ambassadors. We can neither negotiate nor sign treaties on the Maoh's behalf." 

"With Saralegui's . . . You mean that stone-faced . . . what's his name . . ." 

"Beryes," I supplied. I was starting to understand what Geneus was trying to do, and if it worked, everyone involved would richly deserve it. 

"What could you possibly want with a _servant_?" 

"Everyone makes that mistake," I said, and pretended to drink from my glass. "Beryes may prefer not to talk about his past or his family, but that doesn't mean he's a commoner. Far from it." 

"He was briefly reunited with his sister on his recent visit to Shin Makoku," Geneus added. "It was . . . most touching to observe." 

Judging from the non-expression on Lanzhil's face, he'd just swallowed our bait hook, line, and sinker. "Well, like your young . . . friend, I am rather obligated to mingle before the dancing starts. If you two will excuse me . . ." 

I waited until he was out of earshot to turn back to Geneus. "Do you think he's actually going to confront Beryes with a claim that he's a Mazoku noble?" 

"Not here and now. Even Lanzhil would not be so obvious. He will wait until he can get him alone . . . which should make for an interesting game of cat and mouse. Doubly so if Alazon wishes to spend some time with her brother." 

It might end up making our lives a little more difficult overall, but it also felt shamefully good to know that we'd found a way of annoying Saralegui. 

"We should eat," Geneus added. "Wine on an empty stomach is never a good idea." 

Hors d'oeuvres were another thing that didn't seem much different from one world to the next—they might run more to vegetables on health-conscious Earth, but the elegantly arranged things-on-crackers would have been right at home at any function Bob had taken me to. I've never been particularly fond of mystery food, but I forced myself to eat some anyway, since there was no telling whether we would get an actual meal during all of this. 

We were near the far end of the table when Geneus suddenly frowned and tilted his head. 

"What is it?" 

"Behind that curtain—" He nodded in the direction of one of the alcoves studding the wall behind the table. "Do you sense anything?" 

I'd been keeping my power drawn in close, because the room was too full of people (not to mention the odd houseki) and the impressions were too complex for me to sort and make sense of, but now I reached out and probed the space Geneus had indicated. 

"Josak," I whispered involuntarily—or at least, it felt like him, but there was something wrapped around him that made me feel ill. "And houjutsu?" 

"I believe it is a confinement spell." 

_We have to get him out._ That was my first, instinctive reaction, but I bit down on my tongue and forced myself to consider. There were still people covertly watching us out of the corners of their eyes. The last table fully blocked the alcove, and we _would_ draw attention if we started rearranging the furniture. And why stash an immobilized spy in the room at the center of all the activity? _Trap? Whose?_ Saralegui, setting something up? But his plots normally had a shape to them, and I couldn't feel one here. Lanzhil hadn't been here long, and would have had a hard time getting access to the room before the preparations had begun. Alazon? Some other faction in Small Cimaron? 

"He was meant to be found," I said at last. "Beryes is probably our best chance of dealing with this unobtrusively, _if_ we can get to him without drawing too much more attention. If this is Saralegui's game, I don't think we can escape it at this point, and if it's someone else's, they'll want to get it sorted out with a minimum of fuss." 

"I agree." 

We drifted away from the table and along the wall. Unfortunately, there were several groups of people between us and Beryes, including two men in Big Cimaron military uniforms who seemed to be intent on watching him. I muttered a curse as I realized that our game of making Lanzhil suspicious of Saralegui through Beryes had worked a little too well. It couldn't be helped, though. Dodge between the bald man in the green cape and that servant, and— 

By the time I noticed the girl, she was already falling, her foot tangled in the train of another woman's floor-sweeping dress. I grabbed instinctively for her shoulder and helped her straighten up again as her glass fell from her hand and splattered its contents over my fancy new boots. It wasn't until she looked up at me that I realized exactly who I'd caught. _Lanzhil's daughter. Could this get any worse?_

"Lord Shouri, I am so very sorry!" Pink definitely wasn't her colour, so maybe it was just as well that her blush was so intensely red. 

"It's all right," I said. Geneus made a casual gesture in Beryes' direction. I nodded minutely: _Go on alone._ "I mean, it isn't as though you did it on purpose. Do you have your feet back under you again?" 

"I think so." 

"Good." I let her go, or tried to. She moved in closer to me as I withdrew my hand, so that it stayed on her shoulder. And then closer, so that her body was pressed against mine. There was no room to take a step backward unless I wanted to end up inside another one of those alcoves. With her. I fumbled for something to say. "Can I get you something else to drink?" Inane, and I knew it, but if she took me up on it, I would have an excuse to escape. 

"No, I don't think so—I only took it in the first place because I was trying to be polite. I'd actually prefer it if we—" Her hand rose toward my face as she spoke, and it was only because I winced instinctively away that I saw the tiny glint of metal between her fingers in time. 

I caught her wrist in a joint lock—Bob's martial-arts training paying off for the first time ever in a real-world situation. Then I set my glass down carefully on a narrow ledge protruding from one of the ornamental pillars along the wall, and pried the small object from her hand. It was a pin whose pointed tip gleamed green with a thin coating of . . . something. 

I held it up right in front of her eyes. "What is this?" 

"I . . . It . . . He told me it was a love potion," she said in a rush. 

"A _love potion_?" 

"That whoever I stabbed with it would fall in love with me. I just wanted to get away from my father! Since Mother died, he's been . . ." She shook her head. "Shin Makoku seemed about as far away as I could get, and you're handsome and you look . . . kind." 

"Who gave it to you?" 

"A blonde man. One of the servants. I don't know his name." 

My eyes narrowed. _Blonde! Shinzoku?_ It couldn't have been Beryes, at least—judging from what had happened in Shin Makoku, his disguise had to take a little while to put back on after he took it off. 

"You never thought he might be lying?" I asked gently. 

She blinked several times. "No. No, I never did. That's . . . strange." She frowned. "It really doesn't make sense, does it? I'm sorry. Normally I'm not so . . . so _flutter-headed_." A pause. "What do you think is actually on the needle?" 

Relieved, I let go of her wrist. "My guess would be poison. I'd like Geneus to look at it—of all the people here, he's most likely to recognize something exotic." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Geneus talking to Beryes, and the slight jerk of the big Shinzoku's body that had to denote surprise. 

I poked the pin into the silver braid trimming my jacket, making sure that the point was lodged where it couldn't prick me. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" I asked the girl. 

"I think I might have a bit of a bruise," she said, touching her wrist. "It isn't serious." 

Beryes had beckoned several guards over and seemed to be giving orders. Geneus was watching him, or appeared to be. Judging from his expression, he was deep in thought. Then his head jerked up and he spoke again, briefly, to Beryes, before turning on his heel and striding back toward us, pushing past anyone who tried to get in the way—in other words, not even trying to avoid attention anymore. Which wasn't good. 

"Shouri, we must leave here _now_. There is a bomb under that table." 

The girl put her hand over her mouth. _Are you sure?_ would have been a stupid question—if he hadn't been, he wouldn't have risked drawing attention this way. And anything else could wait. 

"We need to get everyone out, then. Without starting a panic." 

"That is our host's task, not ours. Shouri—" 

There was a muffled _crumph_ , and I blinked—was that all? I turned to face the table. Fire was flickering along the lower edge of the charred tablecloth, but only fitfully, with a lot of weird purple smoke . . . except . . . something felt wrong, and I raised my power and clamped a shield around the area before I fully realized what was going on. 

"Gas bomb," I said aloud. "And Josak's still back there." 

"Can you hold it?" 

I nodded. "For a while, anyway. What are you . . . ?" 

"If we are to retrieve the intrepid lieutenant, the only way I can see of doing it is by breaking into the alcove through one of the walls." 

Which needed earth majutsu, which I knew almost nothing about. "Okay. Just . . . be careful." 

A quiet smile. "Have no fear—I have every intention of surviving this." 

Geneus wasted no time, slipping into the alcove nearest the end of the table. I felt the movement of his majutsu as he took out first one wall, then a second, but the sound of cracking stone was inaudible above what was going on in the room around me. 

The problem with having a roomful of important people is that if you _don't_ panic them, the stupider ones feel that it's acceptable to complain about every minor inconvenience. And if your system for determining importance is hereditary, you get slightly more than the average number of stupid important people. Alazon and Saralegui had already vanished, but Beryes was clearly having problems with some of the others. 

"—my daughter away from that Mazoku!" I didn't have to turn around to know who that voice belonged to. Over the past quarter hour, I'd become quite thoroughly acquainted with it. 

"I think I'd better go," the girl said quietly. Then she gave me an impish grin. "I'll find you later to get the whole story. And meet this Josak person." 

"Somehow, I doubt I could stop you," I muttered. What was it with the kids around here? First Damyen, and now her. Crazily precocious, at least about some things, and not a timid bone in either of their bodies. 

I bowed my head and turned all my attention to maintaining the shield around the gas bomb. The pressure on the walls of the shield-sphere was gradually increasing, which also raised the level of effort necessary to keep the contents under control. At first it wasn't that bad, but after a minute or so, sweat started to break out on my forehead. Doing anything sustained with majutsu requires a lot of effort and concentration—it's better at brief, quick bursts of force—and knowing that not just my life, but _Geneus'_ life, depended on my doing this perfectly was nerve-wracking. 

A hand slid into mine, and I jumped, momentarily losing control of the shield and allowing the purple cloud to grow in diameter by ten juddering centimetres before I clamped down on it again. Then my fingers found the familiar scar, and I relaxed just a hair. _He's safe._

I let Geneus lead me out into the hallway, then through another door and out into the gardens. 

"Shouri, you can let go now," said the familiar, beloved voice, and I did, pulling my maryoku back in and blinking at my surroundings. Josak was there too, with his arm across Geneus' shoulders. He was dressed in what was left of a maid's uniform, although the upper part was torn to tatters and left little about his arms and torso to the imagination. He also looked like he'd been beaten, with one eye swollen half-shut. 

He still gave me a grin when he noticed me looking at him, though. "Sorry for worrying you, Shouri-sama. I got careless. Although if I'd known I was going to end up playing damsel-in-distress, I would have brought along that little blue number I picked up last year—it matches my eyes a lot better than this." 

I snorted. "If you're Shin Makoku's best spy, I'd hate to meet the worst one." 

Josak actually laughed. "Well, there are a couple of guys Lord von Voltaire keeps around because they _are_ totally obvious and inept. They make a good smokescreen for the rest of us. Say, M'Lord Sage, do you mind steering me over to that bench? I need to sit down before I fall down. Three hours propped up against the wall and unable to move really did a number on my knees." 

We didn't get that far before there was a disturbance at the gate, though. The guards were talking to someone on the far side. Then several horses were waved through. One head of brown hair, one blonde, and two black . . . 

"Yuuri!" I yelled, and one of the small, black-haired figures turned his horse and rode at a trot along a garden path that hadn't really been meant to accommodate equines. A moment later, the other three followed. 

When Yuuri drew his horse to a stop, he was staring at us, goggle-eyed. "Shouri—everyone—I guess I missed some stuff, didn't I?" 

I couldn't help it. I started to laugh.


	26. Interlude:  The Affairs of Princes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one with the Gwendal/Gunter/Anissina lime bit. If you're not interested in that, just stop reading when Gwendal starts to complain about smelling something odd.

"Alive," she whispers. "Alive, and free. Oh, great Shin'ou . . ." 

He watches in silence as she drops to her knees, head bowed, and begins to cry. Part of him wants to gather her into his arms and let her cry against his shoulder, as he held Anissina the day her mother died. The larger part knows that the girl wouldn't welcome it even if he hadn't been the one to lock her into the dungeons under Blood Pledge Castle the night before. They are strangers, after all, even if the charcoal-grey colour of their hair proves that there is a distant kinship. 

Instead of comforting her, then, he turns the key, unlocking the door, and silently makes his way back to the guardroom, where he hands the keyring over to the sergeant in charge. 

"She's to be permitted to leave whenever she wishes," he says. "And keep in mind that she is a member of the von Radford family. She is to be treated with respect." 

The sergeant salutes, even though he is part of the castle guard and not the private troop of the man in front of him. "Yes, my lord!" 

"Good man." 

He climbs up the back stairs into the castle proper—they're servants' stairs, really, to allow the members of the nobility to forget that the dungeons even exist, should they be squeamish. He can't allow himself such . . . delicacy of spirit, however. If he is to guide the kingdom and protect the Maoh, he must be aware of everything that goes on here, no matter how repugnant. 

And speaking of repugnant, what in Shin'ou's name is that _smell_? Thick and cloying and, well, if a smell could be said to be a sickly purple, this one certainly is . . . it reminds him of some of Anissina's less successful experiments, but her laboratory is at the other end of the castle. 

The green skirts of his long coat swish around his legs as he turns down a different hallway, trying to simultaneously follow that smell and not breathe too deeply. 

He doesn't realize what door it is until he's standing in front of it—he's never approached it from this direction before. In fact, since the incident with the kitten, he's tried very hard not to go near here at all. And in any case, he thought it had fallen into disuse, but apparently its occasional occupant has been so worried this past little while that he's reverted to . . . old patterns. 

He rubs his forehead, feeling the twitch of his eye heralding an oncoming headache, no doubt because of the goop that he's breathing. Unfortunately, he needs the man inside alive and more-or-less functional until His Majesty gets back from his little pleasure jaunt to Small Cimaron, so he sighs and pushes the door open. 

The air inside the room is so thick with the purple-smelling stuff that it's almost foggy, but he can see a manlike shape slumped against the wall at the far end of the room. 

"Günter?" 

No response. 

"I thought you'd given up these divinations." 

Still nothing. 

"Damn it all!" Four quick strides place him near the cauldron that's giving off the vapour, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the immediate area that he can use to take it off the fire. In the end, he has to remove his coat and wrap it around the handle so that he can lift it without burning his palms. It's heavier than he expected, and he almost spills the contents on his feet. Then he staggers back out into the hallway, searching for cleaner air—still purple-scented, but at least it isn't so thick out here. 

There is still no sign of, or sound from, Günter, and so he vents a blistering curse, takes several deep breaths, and wades back into the fog. 

If anything, visual range inside the room has gone down, or perhaps the problem is that resisting the headache has led to him squeezing one eye shut. Either way, his hip strikes a table, and he hears something fall off its surface and land with a _plop_ in the cauldron. Shin'ou's _balls_ , doesn't Günter ever clean up in here? 

The man-shaped shadow is still slumped over by the far wall, and he experiences a moment of doubt—what if this is actually some intruder, and the effects of the purple-smelling stuff are intended to subdue him until Günter can get a guard detachment up here? But no, it's Günter after all, or a very good imitation of him dressed in his clothes. 

Gwendal kneels down in front of the royal aide, and is surprised to see the glint of open, if slightly glazed-looking, purple eyes. He grabs the other man by the shoulders and shakes him. "Günter, we need to get out of here." 

The purple eyes blink and slowly focus. "Gwend'l? Shorry . . . don' shink I c'n walk." 

The fog is starting to clear, finally, and there's a new, not-unpleasant scent in the air that reminds him of spring, of green and growing things. 

"I'll help you. Come on, let's get you up." 

With Günter's sporadic and uncoordinated cooperation, Gwendal gets the other man to his feet. Unfortunately, he didn't count on Günter staying there for only a few seconds before toppling forward. Gwendal braces himself to catch the other man, but his heel slides in something, and he goes over backward with Günter on top of him. 

The green scent is stronger here, closer to the floor, and he takes his first deep breath in what seems like forever as he considers their situation. Günter is sprawled full-length on top of him, mostly limp and, from the expression on his face, still no more than semiconscious. Perhaps a minute or two of breathing the cleaner air will revive the man a little, and make the job of getting him pointed out the door easier. 

It's actually quite comfortable here, with the warmth of Günter's body soaking through the thin fabric of his shirt. His headache is even starting to fade. Günter mumbles something incoherent and wriggles against Gwendal's body, and Gwendal wraps an arm around him to steady him. 

He strokes the other man's back in a slow, soothing motion, and Günter calms down a bit. Are those eyes starting to lose their glaze? Perhaps a little. They do seem more focused now. Günter is rather cute like this, actually, with his face flushed and his hair standing out in a messy lavender aura around his head. Why didn't he ever realize that Günter was cute before? So very cute . . . and those parted lips are such an attractive shade of pink . . . 

They taste good too, he discovers. Very good. There's something hovering in the back of his mind about why kissing Günter maybe isn't such a good idea, but he tells the little voice in question to be quiet. He hasn't felt this good in a long time, relaxed, yet focused—on Günter, that is. And his headache is altogether gone. 

Günter isn't so much wriggling against him now as rubbing, rhythmically pressing his crotch against Gwendal's stomach. And that feels good too . . . not least because of where it means Günter's leg is. 

When did it get so hot in here? Gwendal pushes gently at Günter's chest. After some wriggling and rolling around, they end up half-sitting, with Günter on Gwendal's lap. It's good enough—he can get at the buttons this way, and he unfastens his shirt. And, well, Günter must be well on his way back to normal, because he's shucking out of his cape and long tunic-coat, and undoing both their belts so that their swords drop to the floor. 

Then suddenly, a voice intrudes. "Günter! Are you in here? I need someone to help test my Cleans-Carpets-While-You-Wait-kun, and Gwendal hasn't been in his office since—Oh, my." 

Gwendal huffs in annoyance. Anissina is staring at him with an unfathomable expression . . . and then Günter pinches his nipples, and he isn't interested in Anissina anymore. Let her stare. She isn't strong enough to physically drag _both_ of them out of the room without their cooperation. 

" _Oh_ my," she repeats, in a somewhat different tone, and crouches down on the floor. "I never knew you two were so close. Does Gisela know about this? I'm sure she'd be happy for you." 

"Anissina, shut up and—" Gwendal is unable to complete the sentence, because Günter is kissing him. That goes on for a long time, and after the first moment or two, he forgets entirely that they aren't alone. When he finally does look up again, he is surprised to find the woman still there, examining the cauldron. 

"Still hot," she's muttering. "And I think there's tesko root in this, and halma leaves, and . . . oh, dear. That does explain the smell, and the way everything looks slightly purplish in here. It would have a slight disinhibiting effect, too, but it shouldn't be enough to make those two go at each other like whanlers in heat . . . unless they were attracted to each other already, of course . . . Günter and Gwendal? Well, half the time Günter acts like one of those silly adolescent girls who've been brainwashed into thinking that catching themselves a man is the most important thing in the world, but Gwendal won't even . . . And why is it so _warm_ in here?" 

Gwendal gives her an annoyed glare—every time she says his name, it tugs at his attention, pulling him out of the pleasant haze Günter has been drawing him into. The royal aide is tugging his boots off now, and massaging his feet, and it feels _heavenly_ . . . and Anissina is unbuttoning her collar. Suddenly, his lips are dry, and he licks them as she opens the front of her bodice. She's wearing some sort of female undergarment he doesn't know the name of, and it conceals her nipples, but the _tops_ of her breasts are quite visible, round and soft, and he suddenly wants to bury his face between them. 

"I can't let you boys have _all_ the fun, after all," she says with a smirk. Sitting down beside them on the floor, she unfastens that mysterious undergarment, lifts one side of her skirt, and then reaches for them, placing Gwendal's hand firmly on her breast, and Günter's on her thigh. 

That little alarm is still clamouring at the back of Gwendal's mind. _This is a bad idea . . . this is a_ really _bad idea . . ._

"Shut up," he mutters thickly, wrapping one arm around Anissina and the other around Günter. 

Despite that clamouring alarm, there is something very right about this circle being closed at last.


	27. Chapter 21

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming, Yuu-ri? I would have made you the guest of honour instead of Lanzhil." 

I gritted my teeth, as I had when Saralegui had hugged my brother on the front steps of the palace. _Don't play with the king cobra, please . . ._ but I knew Yuuri didn't have much of a choice in this case, and it wasn't time for us to interrupt yet. Conrad, holding up the wall directly behind my brother, seemed to agree, because while he was smiling an empty, meaningless little smile, his eyes were narrow, and he was staring intently at the seven of us seated at the center of the room. Josak, dressed again in his traveling clothes, was behind Geneus and I, and Beryes loomed over his nephew as usual. Alazon, who had seated herself in a big wing chair, was the only one with no guard behind her. It made her look oddly vulnerable. 

Wolfram, seated beside Yuuri, was glaring at Saralegui. He'd nearly gone ballistic during the hug. Jealous did not _begin_ to describe the little blonde fire-wielder, and so far he had stuck to Yuuri like glue. Cornering him for a private talk was going to be . . . difficult. On Yuuri's other side, Murata was keeping his head tilted so that the reflection from his glasses hid his eyes again, making me wonder what the hell he was scheming this time. 

Yuuri smiled weakly and scratched the side of his face. "Well, it was . . . a bit of a spur-of-the-moment thing. I needed to talk to Shouri. But of course it's great to see you too, Sara!" 

Saralegui smiled too, but there was nothing weak about it. "It's alright, Yuuri. I know that you can't afford to defy your council and come here repeatedly just for my sake." 

"Um, yeah. They can be a bit of a nuisance at times. Especially Stoffel. And Waltorana, although . . . kind of for the opposite reason . . ." 

Murata came to the rescue as Yuuri trailed off into confusion. "I understand there was a bit of excitement here this evening." 

Saralegui's smile faded, and he vented one of those theatrical sighs of his. "I'm afraid your understanding is quite correct. Someone planted a bomb under one of the buffet tables at the reception we were holding for Lanzhil. Fortunately, your brother was able to keep it from harming anyone, although I'm told the table itself won't be salvageable—the entire underside is covered with residue from the poison gas." 

Yuuri's eyes went wide. "Poison gas?! And Shouri . . ." 

I shrugged. "I just clamped a shield over it until everyone was out of the room. Nothing Beryes or Geneus couldn't have done." No need to mention the bit about Josak being stashed in an alcove not three feet from the explosion . . . although it would probably be a good idea to tell Conrad, once Saralegui and company were out of the picture. But I _was_ going to cover another bit of recent history in the young king's presence. "A couple of minutes before it went off, someone tried to stab me with a poisoned pin." 

Saralegui froze for a moment—I think I actually did manage to surprise him. "A poisoned . . . that's . . ." 

" . . . kind of odd," I finished for him. "I'm not really anyone important in the big scheme of things around here, and preparing any kind of complicated plan when we didn't know we would even be coming here . . . But it does make sense if we assume it was meant for you." 

Wolfram snorted. "They'd have to be blind to mistake you for him." 

"I agree, Shibuya's-big-brother. Unless one of you was wearing a disguise, of course." 

I shrugged. "It was Lanzhil's daughter that tried to stab me. She said that the pin had been given to her by a blonde man who had told her that the coating was a love potion, and that she had felt oddly unwilling to question him. Either there was another part of his suggestion that didn't take, or he thought she was going to be thrown in with Saralegui right away, and didn't think it was necessary to point her at a target." I pulled the pin out of the silver braid on my jacket and laid it on the low table between my chair and Murata's to complete the point. 

The Great Sage picked it up . . . very, very carefully. "Kolfer root extract, I think," he said after a moment. "Nasty stuff." 

"Unpleasant, certainly," Geneus said. "But a dose of that size would not guarantee the death of someone of Shouri's mass, not with several skilled healers available. If it is kolfer root, I think we must indeed assume that King Saralegui was the intended victim. Or the princess herself, but that seems unlikely." 

"There's a way to test for kolfer, but I don't remember . . ." Murata was frowning. 

"Acid and lenthan petals," Geneus supplied, with a raised eyebrow. "At this time of year, we might need to check every arrangement of dried flowers within a mile's radius to find what we need to apply it. More efficient to trap a rat or two, and test it that way." 

Yuuri wrinkled his nose. "You mean . . . poison the rats? Ugh." 

"They'd just need to be killed anyway, Shibuya," Murata pointed out, but he also shot Geneus a nasty look. 

"If Your Majesty wishes, we can put out a call for dried lenthan petals first," Geneus said, ignoring Murata's glare and focusing his attention on Yuuri. "But I think we do need to know what that substance is . . . if nothing else, on the odd chance it is indeed something harmless. This is a serious matter, and it would be unwise to take action based on a mistaken premise." 

"I suppose it's silly to worry about some rats," my brother admitted. "But yeah, please do try to find some of those petals first. And . . . 'Yuuri'." 

"My lord Maoh?" 

"You're one of us now—please call me by my name. I'm still not comfortable with all of this 'Your Majesty' and 'my lord Maoh' stuff." 

Murata frowned deeply at the "you're one of us" part. I narrowed my eyes—I'd been under the impression the hatred between them was mostly one-way, but I was starting to think I'd been mistaken. 

Geneus hesitated, then offered my brother a seated bow. "As you wish, Yuuri-sama." 

Yuuri sighed. "That'll have to do for now, I guess." 

"Moving on—are there any blonde men on the staff here? I get the impression that Small Cimaron runs heavily to brunettes," I said. 

Beryes stirred for the first time in several minutes. "There are a few, and they will be questioned." 

"You don't think it was actually one of the staff." Murata made it a statement, not a question. 

I shook my head. "That's the other reason I think they were aiming at King Saralegui. There are a lot more blonde Shinzoku than blonde Cimaronese, and we know they've already been mixed up in this." 

Alazon paled, and spoke for the first time. "It is clear that I must return home, empty-handed as I am. The factions are out of control." 

"That's three of us going on that trip, then," I said. 

"Four," Josak corrected. "You and M'Lord Sage are pretty sharp about some things, Shouri-sama, but other times, you need looking after." 

Murata looked puzzled for a moment at "M'Lord Sage", then got a rather sour look on his face as realization struck. He didn't come right out and say "Don't call him that," though. 

"Sara . . ." Alazon said. 

"What, do you want me to join you?" Saralegui asked, half-smiling. 

Alazon was still pale, and looked extremely distressed, but she continued, "I fear we will need you. You are the one the sword responds the most fully to. I ask this . . . as a ruler only, without reference to our blood-kinship." 

"The blood-kinship that you refused to acknowledge to the point of abandoning me?" 

Alazon's face went very, very still. "I did not . . . I wanted to keep you," she said in a tight voice. "I wanted to keep you, but I knew it was not safe. There were three attempts on your life while you were still an infant, and Yelshi . . . I had to send you away, and your father had an obligation to his country." 

"Don't lie to me." Saralegui's tone was still even to the point of being flat. "A half-breed child with no detectable houryoku . . . How shameful you must have found it." 

"I would have given my life to protect you!" Alazon's voice cracked as she spoke. 

"It is unusual to see you so distraught, Alazon-dono." Geneus' tone was . . . clinical, almost. 

The queen of Seisakoku bowed her head. "I had more than enough time to think, while I was standing there chained to that wall. And one of the things I thought was that I did not want to die in that place without ever having told my only living child that I loved him, and yet bringing the words to my lips . . ." 

Saralegui flinched and leaned back in his chair, as though trying to get as far away from her as possible. "Too little, too late," he said, and his voice was absolutely cold. "All my life that I can remember, I've been alone . . . except for Beryes. And _now_ you're claiming that you love me? It sounds like a joke, except that I can't find any humour in it. You may have borne me, but you aren't my mother, no matter what claims you may make." 

"Don't say that!" Yuuri said. "Just don't, Sara, because—" 

"I might end up regretting it one day? I doubt it. You've never been abandoned by the people who should have loved you most, Yuuri, so don't pretend that you understand. And don't make those puppy eyes at me and feed me some line of overoptimistic nonsense about her being the only mother I have, either." 

"Sara . . ." 

I cleared my throat. "Let's get back on topic for a moment. The four of us need to get to Seisakoku—" 

"Eight," Yuuri said firmly. "I'm not letting you go off alone, Shouri. If anything happened, I—" 

"You're being an idiot again," I snapped. "I'm the expendable one, remember? And you're absolutely needed where you are." 

Yuuri clenched both hands into fists. "No one is expendable," he said with surprising firmness. "Especially not my _only brother_. I've been wearing tracks in the carpet at Blood Pledge Castle the past couple of weeks, wondering where you were and if you were okay. I don't want to do that again." 

"Now you know how I feel whenever you decide to go to Shin Makoku," I said unsympathetically. "I'm not helpless, I'm not going to be alone, and while I may not have the sheer amount of raw maryoku that you do, I know how to use it one hell of a lot better." 

"He's pretty scary in Maoh Mode, too," Josak said. 

Yuuri blinked. "Maoh . . . Mode? _Shouri?_ " 

"Yeah, surprised the heck out of me, too," Josak said. "It isn't quite like yours—his eyes and voice go kind of funny, but he doesn't change otherwise. Still, there's no mistaking it." 

Nice to have that confirmed, anyway. 

My brother blinked several more times. "Anyway, you'll need someone who can use the sword if you find it, right? Since Sara isn't coming." 

"I can probably handle it this time," I said. 

Yuuri set his jaw. "'Probably' isn't good enough. Do you have any idea how close we came to losing you the last time you used that thing? Um, not that I know enough about magic and stuff to really be able to tell how close a call it was, but I needed a _lot_ of power to pry it loose from you. I won't let you take the risk, Shouri. No matter what." 

We glared at each other until Wolfram, of all people, broke the silence. 

"Shouri's right, you know, wimp. You shouldn't go . . . but if we can't stop you, I think it goes without saying that we're all going with you." 

"Seisakoku is one of the few places in either world that I've never visited," Murata said wistfully . . . in Japanese, which sounded weirdly staccato after such a long period of total immersion in the otherworld language. "It isn't often that I get the chance for a completely new experience . . . especially not a pleasant one," he added, giving Geneus a baleful look. 

"I guess it's settled, then," Saralegui said. "Beryes—how long will it take to provision a ship for this? It's the least I can do," he added at the sight of all the raised eyebrows—mine, Geneus', Conrad's, even Murata's. _I don't think the little blonde snake is as indifferent about this as he pretends he is, or he wouldn't be trying to spy on us._

"At least two days," the tall man rumbled. 

"Excellent. You'll stay here until then, won't you? Yuuri?" 

"Pardon me, Your Majesty, but that may not be such a good idea, when you already have Lanzhil as a guest," Conrad said. 

"Don't worry, Lord Weller, I'll ensure than King Lanzhil is . . . kept occupied," Saralegui said. "I do understand that it would be unwise to allow the two of you to meet. He already came close to doing something unpleasant to Geneus-san when they met at the reception . . . or possibly vice-versa. Beryes, we will have to fill in the gaps in the schedule of entertainments. See to it." 

Beryes bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty." 

Alazon gave her brother . . . it was almost a wistful look. Thinking about what he'd been like when they were kids in Seisakoku? Or maybe just envying him for not being in a precarious position of extreme responsibility? 

Saralegui gave us another one of those manufactured smiles. "Well, if you'll all excuse me, I do have other guests, and they need to be placated. Yuuri, I don't like to ask this, but . . . please stay out of sight as much as you can, alright? Just in case." 

"Naturally, we'll do our best," Conrad said before Yuuri could open his mouth. Of course, he did have some stake in staying out of sight too, didn't he? 

Saralegui rose from his seat, and Beryes fell in behind him. They left the room together. Alazon hesitated only a few seconds before rising to her feet and following them out. I extended my focus into the hall to make sure that they were really leaving. At the same time, I felt Geneus' maryoku trailing lightly around the room. 

Suddenly he stood up and went over to the wall Beryes had been leaning against. He poked at something with his right forefinger, and we all heard a muffled yelp. 

"Big rats they've got around here," Josak observed sagely. 

"Indeed," was Geneus' reply. "And I have my suspicions as to who let them loose, although I doubt that their owner, if pressed, would admit to the relationship." 

Yuuri was blinking and looking confused, so I said, "Someone was spying on us—looking in or listening through a hole in the wall—and Geneus just gave him notice that we knew he was there. Try to keep up, Yuu-ch—Yuuri." What can I say? When he was all wide-eyed and cutely innocent like that, he _looked_ like a Yuu-chan, more than he did like a Yuuri. But I'd promised myself that I wouldn't call him that anymore. 

"And you haven't once asked me to call you 'onii-chan'," my brother said—I guess he'd caught on. "Did something happen?" 

"I . . . kind of realized that I've been acting like an idiot," I admitted with a grimace. "A couple of things did happen on the trip—little things—that showed me that trying to protect you by . . . by stuffing you in a box just isn't going to work. I need to try to work with you, instead of always pushing you to see things my way, and that means treating you with more respect than I have been. Sorry." 

Yuuri smiled at me and held out his hand. "Let's start over, then. From today." 

"Yeah." His grip was stronger than I remembered, and he had bands of callus across his palm—from Morgif, I guess. A boy's face still, but a man's hands, and he'd certainly done a man's job in dealing with what had been inside the Forbidden Boxes. So which was he now, really? And, for that matter, which was I? 

"What do you think Seisakoku is like?" he asked as we both sat back again. 

"Well, Beryes' description of it wasn't all that pretty, nudist colony jokes aside," I said, and Murata gave me a wounded look that was as fake as one of Saralegui's smiles. "Unless whoever took the sword has managed not only to get it back there, but to use it, I'm betting it's gotten worse instead of better." 

"They will not have succeeded in using it," Geneus said. "That sword is a magical device for taking houryoku—or maryoku, which is not a dissimilar power—and spreading it outward through the earth and air in a form which is inimical to the Originators . . . and incidentally conducive to promoting the growth of plant life, although I believe that is only a side effect. I suspect its power reserves were meant to be refilled continuously by multiple Shinzoku. By the time I retrieved it at Alazon's direction, those reserves were essentially empty. Shouri refilled them to something over half-strength. Without that, King Saralegui would not have been able to use it . . . but I doubt any of the power he channeled through it remained there afterwards. So unless there is another Shinzoku with untapped power as great as his . . ." 

" . . . they won't be able to do more than generate illusions of vines," Josak finished. "Not very useful, when what they need to do is turn desert back into farmland." 

Murata frowned. Yuuri elbowed him in the ribs. "You know, Murata, you've been looking kind of sour ever since we got here." 

The other boy visibly forced a smile. "It's nothing." 

Yuuri turned the full force of his big innocent eyes on his friend. "I don't believe you." 

"Do we have to talk about this in front of everyone?" Murata's head turned slightly, and it was pretty obvious to me, anyway, that "everyone", in this case, really meant "Geneus". 

"Do not blame your Sage, Yuuri-sama," Geneus put in unexpectedly. "The animosity between us has always been mutual." 

Yuuri blinked several times, parsing that. "I thought you two had made up," he said at last. 

"I would say, rather, that we agreed to a truce for the sake of the country we both love. There is too much between us for us to ever be friends." 

"I can see why you would be angry at him, Geneus-san," Yuuri said. "What I don't get is why Murata is angry at you." His gaze had never left his friend. 

"Each of us has something the other wants, and cannot have." Geneus made an abortive gesture in my direction, and almost without thinking, I captured his hand between both of mine. He squeezed my fingers in acknowledgment. 

Murata gave him a cold look, not even trying to hide it with his glasses. "What could you _possibly_ have that I would want?" 

Geneus' smile was quietly ironic. "The ability to embrace our shared past without the pain it makes you suffer. It does not help that the oldest parts of you have entirely lost their will to survive. You are held in this world entirely by the persona of the fifteen-year-old human boy, Ken Murata, whose life has been severely distorted by what he remembers. You are only at peace when you can force yourself to pretend that the past no longer matters, although no doubt you would claim you are merely putting it in perspective. You had reached a fragile kind of contentment at the thought that your long task was over, and this would be the last lifetime in which you would have to carry your burden . . . and then we discovered an Originator that had never been contained inside the Forbidden Boxes, and you realized that it was not over after all. Right now, you are grappling with an anger which you know to be irrational, since even a fool would be aware that silencing the messengers will not make the topic of the message go away—" 

Murata slammed his hands down on the arms of his chair, silencing Geneus. Silencing everyone, actually—the gesture was so uncharacteristic that none of us seemed able to do anything other than stare. 

"Damn you," Murata said, and that was wrong too. "Can't you just . . . just _stop_? I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for _any_ of this . . . I never wanted . . ." Was that a _tear_ sneaking out from under those glasses? One, and then another . . . running down his face and dripping off his chin . . . "I never wanted to be . . ." 

Yuuri blinked at him. "Murata? Hey, get a grip!" 

Murata sniffled, then took off his glasses for a moment and scrubbed his sleeve across his face. "Sorry, Shibuya. I don't know what came over me there." 

Geneus sighed. "I apologize for this. I did not think my words would cause such deep distress. Especially not when they spoke of things their subject was already aware of." 

Murata put his glasses back on, and offered us a wry smile. "Well, you see, I did know . . . and I didn't. I try not to spend too much time on introspection these days—too much like peeling an onion. All those layers, and in the end, all it ends up doing is making you cry. I knew you made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn't really want to know why. I think I was enjoying being pigheaded about something for once." 

"That I can well understand." 

I had to admit that I understood it too, because I'd felt the same way. Watching Yuuri go his own merry way while I'd sweated blood over my studies . . . it hadn't happened often, but there were times I'd envied him the freedom to be not-perfect. And once in a while, I'd even wished to be just ordinary—just another teenaged boy, free to make mistakes, instead of pushing myself all the time to be the best of the best. Maybe being the wisest of the wisest wasn't much different, when part of you was only fifteen and trying to keep himself balanced on top of thousands of years of information. 

I still couldn't claim that I liked Murata. He'd nearly gotten Yuuri killed by the possessed Shin'ou, just for starters. And if he didn't want to talk about something, he would lie like a rug to avoid the subject, which annoyed the hell out of me. But maybe now I understood him a little better. 

So like, and yet so unlike . . . I glanced at where my right hand lay, intertwined with Geneus' left, across the arms of our chairs. Geneus had never once lied to me, and since that night on the hill near the temple, he'd been almost entirely open with me. And . . . Murata never quite seemed to want to be part of what was going on around him. If it hadn't been for Yuuri, I had a feeling he would have locked himself in the library up at the temple and never come out again. Geneus, by contrast, wanted to help, and I didn't think it was just because he wanted to make up for what he'd done at Alazon's direction. There was something more fundamental there, a love of country, of what he and Shin'ou had built. 

It was almost like Geneus was the mature older brother and Murata, the younger, with a teenaged angsty-rebellious streak. I tamped down the smile, but Geneus noticed it anyway, and glanced questioningly at me. I gave his hand a quick squeeze. 

"We were talking about Seisakoku," I said mildly. "I still want to pin Beryes to a wall somewhere and question him—I think his information is likely to be less biased than Alazon's, and certainly no more stale." 

"We have two days to do that in, though," Josak pointed out from where he stood against the wall. "What about Lanzhil? Are we gonna just leave him to his own devices now?" 

"I do not think he will be at risk for an hour or two," Geneus said. "The bomb will have disrupted any plans King Saralegui may have had in that direction. After that . . ." He shrugged. 

I licked my lips, and forced myself to say, "Yuuri, it's your call. How do you want to handle this?" Asking him to make the decision was symbolic, I knew. For both of us. Yuuri might not be aware of that, at least not consciously, but I was. 

"Do we know for sure that anything's going to happen?" 

Now it was my turn to shrug. "Saralegui implied it, but he may just have been trying to wind me up. Still, Bob's told me several times to hope for the best but plan for the worst, and the worst here involves assassins in the middle of the night and the blame planted on us. Having Conrad in the group makes us an especially easy target—it would be easy for Saralegui to convince a bunch of Cimaronese nobles that the last Weller heir had changed his mind and wanted the throne after all." 

"But Conrad wouldn't—" 

"I know that and you know that, but there are a lot of people in Big Cimaron who haven't even met him," I said firmly. 

"I'm afraid he's right, Your Majesty," Conrad said. "Many of Lanzhil's nobles are incapable of believing that someone would _not_ want the same thing they do." 

"Which means power, and thus the throne," Murata completed. 

Yuuri grimaced. "It always ends up like this—didn't their mothers ever teach them to play nice when they were little?" 

From the way Geneus' mouth twitched, he had to be holding back laughter. "I do not believe that is part of the normal nursery curriculum for Cimaronese noblemen, no. Certainly it was not two thousand years ago." 

My brother shook his head. "Their parents are just so irresponsible . . ." He looked at the rest of us, then cleared his throat. "Anyway, um, Josak, can you keep an eye on Lanzhil for now?" 

"No problem," Josak said. "I'll just go snag another maid uniform, and—" 

"Try the guard uniform you borrowed instead," I said. "Miss Biceps is just a bit distinctive, and the last thing we need is for Lanzhil to put two and two together here." 

"Damnit, Shouri-sama, you ruin all the fun . . ." 

"Yeah, he's a professional spoilsport," Murata said. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though . . . didn't like those kinds of jokes . . ." 

"What was that?" Wolfram asked sharply. 

Murata shrugged. "Oh, nothing . . . Just thinking about the past." He sighed. "I wonder if we could find some servants to make up a room for us? I'm worn out." 

Yuuri rolled his eyes. "You're such an old man sometimes, Murata." 

I looked at Geneus. "Think the room beside ours is still empty?" 

He shrugged. "King Saralegui did offer it to us, which would tend to indicate he did not intend to give it over to Lanzhil's delegation." 

"Question is, can we get there without being noticed? Saralegui might already have admitted that he's playing host to two Mazoku, but having a third obvious Double-Black wandering around the place can't be such a good idea. People might have missed their arrival in all the excitement over the bomb, but now that things have calmed down a bit . . ." 

"I guess we should have brought the turbans and the sunglasses after all," Yuuri said ruefully. 

Wolfram rolled his eyes, got up out of his chair, and dumped a length of heavy brown cloth in Murata's lap: the cape he'd been wearing when they'd arrived. Which had a hood. 

"I like the turbans better too," was all the young Great Sage said as he wrapped himself up. 

I stood. So did Geneus. Pausing beside my brother's chair, I gave Yuuri's shoulder a quick squeeze. 

"We'll talk more in the morning," I said. 

"Yeah. And Shouri . . . take care of yourself, okay?" 

I snorted. "How much trouble do you think I can get into between here and the bedroom? From my point of view, _you're_ the danger magnet." 

"Hey, _I've_ never gotten myself kidnapped while I was less than five miles away from Blood Pledge Castle—" 

"What about that time with Stoffel?" Wolfram interrupted. 

Yuuri blinked. "Oh . . . yeah. I'd almost forgotten about that. I mean, it was such a long time ago—" 

" _Stoffel_ kidnapped you? At least I got abducted by someone _competent_ ," I said, exchanging warm glances with Geneus. 

"It just proves that he really is a hopeless wimp," Wolfram said smugly. 

"You told me I was one too, if I remember correctly," I said. 

Wolfram flushed and muttered something. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him. 

"I _said_ , that was before." 

So I wasn't the only one who'd noticed that I'd changed. Actually, if Wolfram the Oblivious had picked up on it, chances were that _everyone_ had noticed. Even Yuuri was less dense than his spitfire fiancé. 

Outside the sitting room, Geneus directed us down a narrow back hallway. I extended my maryoku, checking for possible observers, but the place was quiet. 

"Why did you want so badly to talk to us in private?" Geneus asked quietly, almost making me stumble. 

"I figured you would probably pick up on that—nothing less from the Double-Black Great Sage," Murata said cheerfully. 

There was a moment of frigid silence. " _Do not mock me._ " 

"I'm not." Murata's expression, or at least as much of it as I could see past his hood, turned serious. "You've already proven several times that you're just as deserving of the title as I am. I mean to try to treat you as an equal from now on, not as a doll or a copy or any of that. We want at least some of the same things . . . don't we?" 

This time, the silence was merely heavy. 

"Quit trying to change the subject, friend-of-my-brother," I said at last. 

"Just trying to give the time for you to brace yourselves, Shibuya's-big-brother." 

My eyes narrowed. "For what?" 

"Well, I was just curious about when you were going to tell Shibuya that you're sleeping together." 

I sputtered incoherently, but Geneus didn't flinch or break stride, seeming utterly unsurprised. 

"It is true that our young Maoh is not the most observant of men," my lover said. "In the morning, I suppose. If we leave it for too long, Saralegui will use the information to disconcert him, and I would prefer not to play into our host's agenda in any way. He is not the sort of man who should be taken lightly." 

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I see your point, although I'd prefer not to tell him at all." 

"Are you ashamed of me, then?" 

"Not in the least," I said firmly. "But telling Yuuri puts me one step closer to having to tell my parents, and while my mother will probably be okay with everything, I have no idea how Dad's going to react. He nearly flipped out about Yuuri and Wolfram, and it's pretty obvious once you've watched those two together for a while that Yuuri isn't at all serious about their engagement. When Dad finds out that I've chosen a man, and someone from this world at that, to be my partner . . ." I swallowed, and forced myself to continue. "I'm terrified that I'm going to end up having to choose between you and my family. Because I know, deep inside, that if it came to that I would choose you, and that would break their hearts." 

"Shouri . . ." 

Murata cleared his throat. "If it does come to that, I'll smooth it over," he said. "I mean, it would break Shibuya's heart too, and Mama-san's, and I don't want to see that happen." 

"You'd think they were your family too," I said. 

"Well, they're— _you're_ —the closest thing I have right now. The last time either of my parents was home for more than three consecutive days, I was still in elementary school. That's why I sponge meals off you guys so often. It's the only chance I have for that kind of warmth." There was that crooked, rueful grin, not unlike some of Geneus' smiles. "So look after me carefully, _onii-chan_." 

I sighed. _Just what I need—another little brother who's a total handful._ "I didn't ask _you_ to call me that, friend-of-my-brother." 

Murata's smile turned wistful. "I don't suppose you have a sister hidden away somewhere, do you? Or that you could convince your parents to adopt me? I doubt mine would care." 

"If you keep on like that, I'm going to start feeling sorry for you," I complained. "And I don't think that would be good for either of us." 

"Probably not," Murata admitted as we turned a corner and slowed to a stop. "This room here?" He gestured at a door. 

"Yeah. We're in this one," I added, pointing. 

"So you really are right next door. I'll hide my head under a pillow," the young Sage said. "Good night." 

The door shut behind him, leaving us blessedly alone for the first time in hours, and I sagged just a bit. 

"Tired, beloved? Should we seek out our bed as well?" Geneus smiled gently at me as he cupped his hand along the side of my face, but there was a wicked spark glowing in his eyes. 

"To bed, yes. But not to sleep quite yet," I said. 

Somehow, Geneus leaned in toward me without seeming to move, and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my parted lips as he asked, "What did you have in mind, then?" 

"I want to taste you," I whispered. "All of you." And I added his true name, a mere breath of sound, as I saw a faint shudder run through him. 

Somehow we made it inside the room we'd occupied the night before, arms around each other, mouths locked together. Geneus shut the door with a flick of wind majutsu which dissipated into a confusion of breezes as I began to kiss and nibble and lick my way along his jaw and down his neck. There was something exquisitely satisfying, I discovered, about sucking hard on a little patch of that alabaster skin and leaving a darkening red mark behind to show the world that this man was _mine_. 

We had to cooperate to get his tunic off and his shirt open. The scar on his shoulder tasted no different from the undamaged skin, but the texture was bumpy and almost slick instead of silken-soft. The nipple it pointed to did have a subtly distinct flavour, but the difference was so minute that I couldn't find the words to describe it—it just was. I pinched its mate gently between my thumb and forefinger, then rubbed it, trying to angle my hand just so, so that the nascent callus would slide over the tip of the crinkled nub, and was rewarded with a soft inarticulate sound. His hands trembled as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and let that, too, fall away, leaving his upper body completely exposed to me. 

I changed tactics and began to nuzzle and lick the sensitive skin on the inside of his left forearm while my hands stroked his spine and the muscles of his back, feeling them twitch and shiver. The solitary bead of sweat that had collected in the crook of his elbow tasted salty, and he made another soft sound as I licked it away. When I looked up, he was watching me, face flushed, eyes heavy-lidded. 

I had, I decided, altogether too much clothing on. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to hold him close, skin to skin . . . maybe even whisper what I planned to do once we got to the bed into one of those elegant ears . . . Fumbling hands disposed of the black velvet jacket with its overblown silver trim (thankfully, Geneus still had the presence of mind to unhook and unbutton the fastenings that I missed), but the buttons on the shirt were just too many and too small, and after a moment I outright ripped the front of it open, ignoring the little pops and pings as dislodged fasteners scattered themselves around our feet and disappeared into the carpet. I yanked my arms out of it, leaving it hanging from the waistband of my trousers like an awkward sort of skirt, and caught Geneus' mouth with mine, sliding my arms around him. He ground our lower bodies together, and I moaned into the kiss as the friction made sparks shoot up my spine. 

We left a trail of discarded clothing from there to the bed, belts and boots and trousers and Geneus' hair ring. I manoeuvred us so that he would have his back to the mattress, then gave him a firm push, and his mouth quirked up in a smile as he fell backward onto the silken sheets, his hair spreading out underneath him in a curtain of even finer silk. 

" _Beautiful,_ " I whispered. 

"I am glad that you find me pleasing," came the soft reply. 

"I'm doing something wrong if you can still form complete sentences," I said, and Geneus laughed. It was a beautiful sound, and one he so seldom made freely. 

"I have never had a lover capable of making me lose that particular faculty. Perhaps you will be the first." The look he gave me as he spread his legs invitingly was compounded of equal parts mischief and smouldering lust. 

I knelt between those legs, but instead of immediately directing my attention to the point where they joined his torso, I started at the base of his breastbone and began to kiss my way down his stomach, feeling the flutter of trembling muscle under alabaster skin. Geneus' self-control, when he chose to exercise it, verged on the superhuman, but if you knew where to look, there were always little things that gave away what he was feeling underneath. Like the startled gasp when I plunged my tongue into his navel, or the shudder of anticipation as I began to work my way onward and downward, following the trail of dark hair . . . and the irritated exhalation as I turned aside and nibbled at the inside of his thigh. 

I smirked at him and worked my way, as slowly as I could bear, down to his knee, and then back up again. Only then did I turn my attention to the place where his had to have been focused all along. 

His cock twitched as it felt the moist warmth of my breath. I snuck a quick glance at Geneus' face, and while the rest of his expression was relaxed, his eyes almost burned a hole in me—hungry, _wanting_ . . . Little Shouri twitched too, and I felt a wet drop leak down into my pubic hair. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Opened them again. And leaned forward to taste. 

The salty bitterness of that fluid would never be my favourite flavour, I decided immediately, but the shiver that went through him at the touch of my lips and tongue was more than reward enough for putting up with it. I licked the tip of his cock, probing the slit there gently with my tongue, and then slowly began to work it further into my mouth. I knew I was probably driving him crazy, but I _had_ to go slow—fifteen or twenty centimetres doesn't seem like a hell of a lot in the abstract, but trying to hold it in your mouth without biting down or gagging isn't all that easy, and I hadn't exactly practiced this. 

I kept going, though, swallowing several times as the head approached the back of my throat, until my nose was pressed into silky black public hair and I had no further to go. The scent of him, musk and not-cinnamon, was thick here, and I realized suddenly that one of the reasons that Keiko and I had never quite worked out was that I hadn't liked the way she smelled underneath the jasmine perfume that she loved so much. And then I was irritated at myself for even letting her cross my mind. 

Suddenly, I felt a hand touch my head, and then Geneus was untying my hair, letting it fall down to tickle my shoulders and back. I still wasn't used to that . . . but then he began to massage my scalp in a slow, circular motion, and even though it wasn't really a sexual touch, lightning arced down my spine and I just about choked on his cock. My balls were heavy, and I could feel that warm little tingle inside me again, and I realized that I very much wanted something _else_ inside me too. I ached for it, ached for _him_ , for the cock I was tentatively sucking on . . . Great Shin'ou! I was turning into a total bottom . . . and couldn't seem to bring myself to regret it. 

I reached down and grabbed Little Shouri at the base and almost came into my hand before I could tighten my grip enough to get myself under control again. A quick glance up and past Geneus' shoulder allowed me to spot the little ceramic jar from last night on the bedside table—the one on the far side of the bed, of course, but I knew how to fix that. A burst of wind majutsu knocked the jar down onto the sheets. It rolled over to bump against Geneus' arm, and he not only picked it up, but opened it before handing it to me. I accepted it and tucked it between my knees. _Mind over matter now, Shouri, you can do it . . ._

I bobbed my head slowly as I relaxed my death grip on Little Shouri. _Just a little longer now,_ I told my body. _You can hang on that long, right?_

The stuff inside the jar was cool and oily. I coated my fingers generously and reached behind myself, sliding them down the crack of my ass until I found what I was looking for. And then, for the first time ever, I pushed the tip of one finger inside, penetrating myself. 

In a weird way, the sensation of being stretched steadied me—my fingers weren't long enough for me to rub my own prostate, so all I got was the slightly uncomfortable sensation I remembered from Geneus' initial explorations the night before. In fact, my erection softened slightly and enough of me returned to the real world for me to realize just how ridiculous I must look, kneeling awkwardly with my rump in the air and another man's cock in my mouth and my arm snaking around my body . . . I sucked on Geneus again to distract myself and was almost tempted to try humming, but if he came, it might be quite a while before I got what I wanted . . . 

I got the tips of three fingers into myself and decided that that was going to have to do, because Little Shouri was rapidly headed toward dripping hard again. Quickly I sat back on my heels and slathered some of the contents of the jar over Geneus' cock. Then I put the jar aside and crawled forward until I was kneeling astride his stomach. I reached behind myself and, groping, got the head of his cock into place. Then I began to lower myself onto it. 

A moment of resistance, a flash of pain, and then I could feel it inside me, rubbing, probing . . . It burned a bit, but somehow that just made it even better. I wanted to let myself drop, but my lover's hands were on my hips, guiding me down at a slow, steady rate. I howled as the tip of it finally, _finally_ hit my prostate, and I felt more droplets leak from Little Shouri. 

I was out of control then, whining and rolling my hips and . . . hell, I don't actually remember _what_ I was doing, just that heavenly sensation inside me and the pleasurable pressure building between my legs. My maryoku was awake too, humming just under my skin, and I could feel Geneus' power twining with it and stroking it and doing things I didn't have a name for—things that I think I had craved all my life but wouldn't have known to ask for even if I'd known they were possible. And all the time, those intense liquid black eyes staring into mine as though probing my soul. 

I was almost thankful when Geneus gripped the base of my cock the way he had the previous night, holding me suspended right on the edge of orgasm, with my balls swollen and aching and his cock hard as a rock inside me. I rode short, quick upward thrusts with tiny ecstatic sounds falling involuntarily from my lips with each movement. The thwarted climax settled molten in the pit of my stomach, biding its time, and I began to ride him harder, raising and lowering myself instead of just being a passive recipient. 

Then he shuddered, gave two, then three, quicker, ragged thrusts, and I felt him come inside of me. We stayed like that for a moment, with me fully seated, feeling him pulse and fill me with liquid warmth—he meant me to feel it, to concentrate on that sensation, I could tell. Not until he was done did he let go of Little Shouri, letting my orgasm take me in a white-hot, molten wave that left me gasping, with my head bowed forward and loose black strands trailing into my face. 

"Far from rendering me speechless, you same to have done as much to yourself," Geneus observed. He wove his fingers into my hair and gently tugged me further down, curving his body upward until our lips met for a kiss, warm and slow. 

"Not quite," I said as we parted. "Um . . . I guess we should get cleaned up." 

"Indeed. Lovemaking can take many forms, but in my experience, two things it never is are clean or dignified." 

I wrinkled my nose and raised myself off him. His softening cock slid out of me with a faint squelching sound, and I felt liquid dribble down the insides of my legs. Geneus was smiling, clearly amused. 

"Your expression is a study," he said, and slid off the bed with something approaching grace, and without leaving any of the mess on his stomach and crotch behind on the sheets. He walked over to the washstand tucked into the corner by the door. There was a pitcher of water braced on the back of it, and he poured some of it into the basin and wet two cloths, handing one of them to me. A touch of majutsu sent the leftover water jumping neatly back into the pitcher. 

"Most Mazoku don't use their power nearly as casually as you do," I observed as I began to wipe myself down. _Or as casually as you're teaching me to do, either._

"The Soukoku as a tribe had customs that differed from those of the other Mazoku," Geneus said quietly. "It was always our way to use our majutsu as much as we could, in order to improve our control of it. What I am teaching you . . . is what I would have taught my children. What I hope I may still teach them," he added with an unfathomable look at me. 

"I always did want kids," I said. "We could adopt one, I guess, the way Yuuri did with Greta." 

"Perhaps, but I had hoped, in time, for a child of our blood." 

I blinked. _What?_ "Is that even—" Then I had a horrifying thought. Surely, even with the topsy-turvy biology on this side, it wasn't possible that— "Male Mazoku in this world can't get _pregnant_ , can we?" 

And the freakiest part of the whole idea was that if it was possible, I'd be willing to do it, to give up whatever dignity and masculinity I might have left in order to have his child— _our_ child. The thought embarrassed me, but it also created an odd wave of warmth inside me. I wasn't ready to do it yet, I had too many other things to deal with, but someday . . . 

Geneus stared at me, and my mouth went dry. Both times we'd had sex, I'd been the receiving partner . . . surely I couldn't _already_ be . . . Then he started to laugh, softly at first, but it turned into a real, shoulder-shaking belly laugh that had him grabbing the washstand for support. "That is . . . the most ridiculous notion . . ." he gasped out between spasms of mirth. "What would be the point . . . of separating people into male and female, then?" 

"Well, nothing in this world works like it does at home—what would you expect me to think when you start saying things like that?" I asked, flushing. 

Geneus wiped his eyes, dashing away tears of laughter. "The differences between creatures from the different worlds are not typically of that order, however," he said, still smiling. "No, for the two of us to have a child together, we would need to engage a healer to combine our seed, and a surrogate to carry the fetus. It is not something we should consider immediately, however—we need to build a pattern for our future first." 

"A pattern for our future," I echoed. "Our future _together_. I . . . like the way that sounds." 

Geneus kissed me then, eyes sparkling. "I, too," he admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . and that is the sole mention of mpreg that will turn up anywhere in this 'fic, I promise.


	28. Chapter 22

Someone was knocking on the door. I muttered something incoherent and curled closer to Geneus, who had fallen asleep with me cuddled against his chest. 

"Oh, for the love of . . . _Shouri!_ " 

"Um, Shibuya, I'm not sure that's a good idea . . ." 

The doorknob rattled, and I realized with sudden crystal clarity that while we'd gotten the door closed the night before, we'd never gotten around to locking it. 

Light spilled into our room from the hallway, and Yuuri, standing in its path, blinked at the mess of discarded clothing on the floor. "What the—Shouri, are you in here?" 

Beside me, Geneus stirred and sat up. "It appears that knocking truly has become a quaint custom in these latter days," he said with a touch of acid. 

"Geneus-san?" Yuuri waved his hands and took a step backward. "I'm sorry! I thought this was Shouri's room!" 

"That still doesn't get you out of knocking," I said, and sat up too. "Friend-of-my-brother, I know we said we were going to tell him in the morning, but this _wasn't_ how I'd intended to go about it." 

Murata gave me that crooked grin over Yuuri's shoulder. "Sorry, Shibuya's-big-brother, but I couldn't stop him." 

I gave him an unfriendly look. "Did you even try?" 

"Shouri, you aren't . . . in the same bed together, naked . . . because Sara ran out of rooms to put people in, are you?" 

I sighed. "Yuuri, close the damned door, okay? We'll be out as soon as we're dressed. I am _not_ having this conversation without some clothes on." 

"Um . . ." 

Geneus used a flick of wind majutsu to push the door shut. My lover's quiet, "We had best not keep them waiting too long," overlapped with the sound of more chaos out in the hall. 

"Murata, are they really . . . sleeping together?" 

"Try to keep up, Shibuya. Yes, they're sleeping together. No, I don't know how long this has been going on, although I'm pretty sure they weren't before they left Shin Makoku." 

I wasn't going to wear the black velvet again any time soon if I could help it, but our traveling clothes had been laundered and were lying, folded, on the sofa. Scrambling into them went pretty quickly, too, since I'd had a fair amount of practice over the past few weeks. I tugged my comb through my hair, wincing at the tangles, and tied it back. Geneus was already dressed, hair braided, and looking amused. He offered me his hand, and I took it. Thus joined, we opened the door and stepped out into the hall. 

"Um," Yuuri said again, looked at our hands, and flushed. "Shouri . . . I know I've said more than once that I wish you would get a girlfriend and stop obsessing about me, but this . . . isn't what I expected. At all." 

"I've had girlfriends," I said mildly. "I just never brought them home, or even talked about them to you, because I knew it probably wasn't going to work out with any of them. Being attracted to smart, no-nonsense people is a problem on Earth if you also have no choice but to believe in magic and alternate worlds. I never found anyone that I liked and could have told the truth to . . . and anyway, none of those relationships ever felt . . . solid. This, on the other hand . . . I can feel right down to my bones that Geneus and I are meant to be together. Even if this isn't where I expected to end up either." 

"So this is . . . permanent?" 

"That is our intention, Yuuri-sama." 

Geneus' gentle smile didn't placate Yuuri one bit. "This is still . . . Weren't you supposed to have kids and carry on the family line, or something? And Wolfram and I can't . . . and he won't let me get out of it . . . arrgh!" Yuuri ran his hands through his hair, making it stick out in strange directions. 

"We do intend to have children," Geneus said, "although it is still too soon to say when, or how many. As for Lord von Bielefelt, we had intended to speak to him, since he seems to be mistreating you." 

"You—I mean he isn't—I mean, I don't want you to—" 

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, for—We're not saying we're going to _hurt_ him, you idiot! We do realize that he's your friend. But you need to get this whole engagement thing sorted out one way or the other, and even if you do decide you want him that way, throwing fireballs at you every time he _thinks_ you _might_ be looking at someone else is _not_ acceptable behaviour. I'm not letting him do that to my brother . . . and don't tell me that if your positions were reversed, Conrad and Gwendal wouldn't have yanked you aside for a conversation months ago." 

"Well, maybe, but I still don't—Murata, stop laughing!" Yuuri glared at his friend, who was doubled over against the wall. 

"Sorry, Shibuya." But he didn't sound very sorry. 

"This is hard enough without you thinking that it's funny!" 

"What's so hard about it?" the other boy asked. "Your brother's in love, his boyfriend—while I may not like him personally—is an intelligent, beautiful, and personable man, and they've just offered to help you sort out your own love life. All you need to do is sit back and relax." 

"It's the idea of Shouri sorting out my love life that has me worried," Yuuri said. "Part of the reason I've never had a girlfriend was that he's so damned overprotective! If he hurts Wolfram, I'll, I'll . . . " 

I sighed. Pinched the bridge of my nose. "I already said we wouldn't. You've always been like that: you'll fight like a tiger to protect someone _else_ , even a total stranger, but when it comes to protecting _yourself_ , you just . . . won't. You'd rather let people walk all over you than risk hurting them. That's part of the reason I'm always so _worried_ about you. If you want me to give you more space, you need to work on self-defense, okay?" 

But Yuuri still had that mulish look on his face. Well, I'd done my best. Time to change the subject. "Why were you looking for me, anyway?" 

"Oh, that's right—we're going to be late for breakfast! Come on!" And Yuuri took off down the hallway without so much as a backward glance. 

Murata, as he passed me in Yuuri's wake, actually gave me a sympathetic look. "Keep trying, Shibuya's-big-brother . . . although I don't think you're going to have much luck. You may just have to come to terms with it, the way Lord Weller and I have." 

"And it's a damned thankless job to boot," I muttered. Still, maybe trying to make Yuuri see sense was the kind of thing that only a big brother could do. 

Breakfast was . . . tense. Saralegui had arranged to receive everyone from Shin Makoku without too many hangers-on. It was just us, and him, and Beryes looming behind his chair . . . and Alazon. 

"I'm so pleased that you could join us," the young king said with a wide smile as the four of us entered the room. Conrad and Wolfram were already seated. The little blonde looked grumpy, but he brightened up as Yuuri sat down beside him. Conrad was just wearing one of those inscrutable little smiles of his that gave nothing away. I ended up halfway down the table, between Geneus and Murata, and facing an empty chair. There was a second unoccupied seat on Saralegui's immediate right—apparently no one had quite dared to take it. 

Alazon was down at the foot, as far from her son as possible. I doubted it was by choice, but her expression gave nothing away. 

The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop as Saralegui nodded to the servants who were hovering by the two carts of food that flanked the door to this dining room. One of them reached for a platter . . . and Alazon held up her hand. 

"King Saralegui, I have a request." 

"Queen Alazon, I will of course provide anything you require . . . within reason." 

"Then I desire that Beryes be permitted to join us for this meal." 

Saralegui raised his eyebrows and glanced up at his retainer, who hadn't so much as batted an eyelash. "Beryes, sit down." 

"As you wish, Your Majesty." Beryes glanced briefly at the empty chair beside his nephew. Then his mouth thinned, and he walked down the table to take the seat between Wolfram and Conrad, which put him directly across from me. 

Large quantities of food were deployed across the table, and the servants poured two glasses of liquid for each of us: water, and something yellow and clear that looked like apple juice. I took a sip of the yellow stuff, and almost choked: _Wine?_ At this hour of the morning? And Yuuri was reaching for his glass— 

Thankfully, Murata chose that moment to reach across the table, grab my brother's hand, and firmly shake his head. Then he turned to one of the servants. "Could you take that away, please? The Maoh is allergic to alcohol." 

Saralegui covered his mouth with his hand. "Oh! I'm dreadfully sorry, Yuuri, I didn't realize!" 

Yuuri smiled nervously. "Well, I'm not _really_ allergic to it, but I'll get in big trouble with my mother if I drink it, so . . ." 

"Your brother seems to have no such concerns." 

_Little bastard._ Yes, I still had my glass in my hand, but he hadn't had to draw attention to it. 

Yuuri shrugged. "Well, Shouri's nearly of age even back home. I've got almost five years to go." 

"People in Shin Makoku don't come of age until they're twenty-one? Well, I suppose Mazoku do live longer, but it still seems bizarre—" 

"My understanding is that the Shinzoku wait until nineteen," Geneus interrupted—on purpose, I was sure, since he would never do something like that casually. 

Come to think of it, did Saralegui know about Earth? I'd never heard anyone mention it in his presence. He might just subscribe to the "distant land" theory of Yuuri's origins. 

"That is true," Alazon said, sipping her wine composedly. 

Saralegui allowed himself to be diverted. "Then I would still be considered a child in Seisakoku? How . . . unbelievably tedious." He helped himself to bread, several small sausages, and a dozen slices of fruit that had been elegantly arranged on a platter. 

I inspected the plates, platters, and baskets that had been placed in front of me as the servants bowed and withdrew. Bread rolls and jam, more sausages, a basket of mystery deep-fried tentacular things, and another something that looked like a Jell-o mold. Murata and Wolfram seemed to have no qualms about the tentacles, so I cautiously took one, dissected it, and had a taste, discovering that it was sort of like kalamari, but less rubbery. 

Beryes took one roll and set it precisely in the center of his plate. While he was as expressionless as usual, I got the feeling he was uncomfortable. That kind of surprised me—this wasn't exactly a state banquet, and he had to have eaten informally with his sister many times, back before they had left Seisakoku. Maybe it was just because Alazon had drawn him out of the role he'd become accustomed to over the last decade or so. His voice, however, was clear and even-toned when he spoke up. 

"There are historical reasons for it. Royal succession in Seisakoku is a function of developed houryoku rather than bloodlines, and occasionally those to whom the throne has passed were . . . rather wild in their youth. As a result, the age of adulthood was raised twice, by two years each time." 

I finished my not-kalamari and decided to stick to bread and sausage henceforth, unless some of the fruit made its way down the table to me. "Does that mean that if someone with stronger houryoku than the current monarch suddenly appears, the king or queen could be ousted?" 

"At that point, it becomes a matter of politics and preference," Alazon said. Her plate was still bare, and she seemed disinclined to let go of her wineglass. "If the nobles fight to keep their current monarch, they generally succeed. If, on the other hand, they were to throw themselves behind the newcomer . . ." 

I didn't need to be a genius to complete that with, _the throne would change hands._

"And if the monarch is presumed dead?" Murata asked. 

"If you are asking about my current status, the answer is that I do not know," Alazon said. "I left the government in the hands of my supporters, but it has been fully fifteen years, and if they found another strong candidate who was not otherwise objectionable . . ." She shrugged and took another sip of her wine. "It will be . . . interesting . . . to discover." 

I was pretty sure she had intended to return in triumph, with the holy sword at her side, or not at all, which meant that the current scenario of going back with a bunch of Mazoku in tow, but no sword, wasn't anything she or her supporters had planned for. 

Murata smiled crookedly. "That's a shame—when it comes to things like that, I prefer to be bored." 

Alazon returned a cool, empty smile. "Surprises in politics are seldom pleasant ones." 

"What political factions were active in Seisakoku at the time you left?" I hadn't intended to question Alazon and Beryes together about this, but I wasn't going to discard an opportunity, either. 

"You are already aware of the two largest," Alazon said. "My supporters favoured locating the holy sword at all costs. Those who believe in the superiority of the Shinzoku as a race wanted no contact with the outside, even if it meant the death of our nation." 

"And one other," Beryes said. 

Alazon frowned. "They are not relevant." 

"I disagree," her brother replied. "They may endanger King Saralegui." 

She shook her head. "What a loyal dog you have become." 

Alazon was probably too far down the table to see the hint of expression on Beryes' face, or the flare of rage in his eyes as he went very, very still. 

"The third group would favour conquest, no doubt, either to wrest supplies from other nations or to obtain arable land," Geneus said. "There would also have been a fourth group, which favoured doing nothing, but it would have shrunk over the years as the situation became more desperate, and in this case may have been subsumed entirely by the second group. There may also have been a few smaller cults of personality, but in the end, they would fall into whichever division their leader espoused." 

Saralegui, I noticed, had divided his attention during this commentary between Geneus himself, Alazon, Beryes . . . and Murata. However, the young Sage was still smiling that lopsided smile, with the light reflecting off his glasses, which made it difficult to tell what, if anything, he was thinking. 

In the end, Saralegui sighed and said, "It's that insight that makes you so valuable, Geneus-san. Are you certain that there's nothing I can offer you to get you to work for me?" 

I couldn't help it: I tensed. Yuuri was less subtle, but at least he'd turned his head to stare at me before his eyes had bugged out. 

Geneus merely added to the chorus of empty smiles, and said, "The few things I desire that I do not already have are not within your gift, King Saralegui." 

He also touched my knee, under the table, and I hid a goofy grin that would have been very out of place. 

"So, three major factions," I forced myself to say. "What else can you tell us about them—their composition, leaders, level of power . . ." 

"There was little commonality," Alazon said. "Except that the third group was largely composed of young hotheads, which is why I am inclined to disregard them. By now, they will have dissolved." 

"There are always more young hotheads looking for a way to prove themselves," was Geneus' reply. "I think you will find that their membership has stayed constant in size, or perhaps even grown slightly, although individuals will have migrated to one of the other groups as they matured." 

"How can you know?" Wolfram snapped. "You can't just pull such things out of the air and expect everyone to listen!" 

"Human nature," Murata said quietly. "It doesn't matter whether you're human, Mazoku, or Shinzoku, or where or in what era you live: almost everyone will react to constant danger and desperation according to a limited number of patterns, and pointless, mis-aimed aggression is one of them." 

Geneus ate a sausage, then turned slightly to look at Alazon. "The first faction would have supported you in your quest for the sword. Did the second also do so?" 

"They did," Beryes said. Alazon's expression flickered, but she was back to her poker face too quickly for me to get a good look. 

"And their leaders?" 

Again, it was Beryes who replied. "Terruzos was a cousin of our mother. He was a strong supporter of the crown, but he was also quite elderly. I doubt he has survived this long. Calmeth was—and very likely still is—the owner of the largest farming operation that still existed in Seisakoku." 

It didn't take a genius to make the connections there, either: farming meant food, having control of a large amount of food in a land that had been dangling on the edge of starvation for the past several generations made you powerful, and the return of the holy sword would destroy that power base. And if someone like that had supported Alazon when she'd gone off to look for the sword, he must have both wanted to get rid of her very badly, and had a contingency plan in place just in case she succeeded. 

"Calmeth's father was a master of the difficult art of hybridizing plants with houjutsu," Alazon added. "He used this ability to create food crops that would thrive when grown on marginal land and watered from the ocean. However, he was not willing to share the fruits of his labour with the rest of the country, no matter how my predecessor begged or threatened." 

Yuuri made a face. "That's awful." 

Saralegui had been oddly silent since his attempt to woo Geneus away from Shin Makoku. A glance at him told me that he had a pensive frown on his face, but not much else. His eyes were hidden behind his glasses, and his hands were below the surface of the table. Which might be saying something in and of itself, really. 

Conrad had been even quieter, not having spoken one word since we'd entered the room. He was just sitting there, smiling that meaningless smile of his. If I hadn't been seeing him eat and drink, I would have been wondering if someone had replaced him with a life-sized plushie. As it was, we could have been seeing an illusion wrapped around someone else. I extended my focus cautiously, but couldn't find anything odd about him. 

"Are you sure you won't come with us, Sara?" Yuuri added. "This might be your only chance to see the country where you were born." 

"I have my own country, Yuuri. And I'm responsible for its continued survival, I'm afraid," Saralegui said smoothly. "I've already spent too much time outside our borders this year, so even after Lanzhil leaves again, there's a lot of domestic policy that I have to catch up on." 

My brother grimaced. "That almost sounds like you _want_ to do paperwork." 

"Well, if I leave it alone for too long, it just piles up, and I end up having to put in marathon sessions of several days during which I can do nothing else. If I keep on it, though, I only need to put in an hour or so after lunch." And there was that vacant smile again. 

"And you don't even have a Gwendal or a Günter chasing after you," Yuuri muttered, loudly enough that I think everyone at the table heard it. Wolfram certainly did, because he snorted. 

"Please, let's not fight," Saralegui added. "I'd like us to make the most of the time we have together." That was so fake that I think Yuuri was the only one who believed it. Even Wolfram rolled his eyes. 

Breakfast came to a merciful end not long after that, when a servant discreetly eased the door open and informed Saralegui that Lanzhil was looking for him. The young king gave a theatrical sigh and stood up, with Beryes immediately following suit (and the servant goggling at the disguised Shinzoku, confirming that he didn't normally take meals with his charge). I waited until the door had closed behind them before folding my napkin and standing up. Yuuri just left his on his chair. Alazon was the only one who didn't move. She stayed where she was, staring into her wineglass, as the rest of us left, looking almost as pathetic as Beryes' abandoned plate, with its single untouched roll positioned dead center. 

Outside in the hallway, Murata spoke up. "You know, Shibuya, I'd like to have a look around—discreetly, of course. Lanzhil's in the west wing, I believe, so as long as we stay away from there . . ." 

"Do you even know where the west wing is? Or which way is west, for that matter?" Yuuri asked. 

"It's that way," Conrad said, pointing. "And there are only two entrances to the west wing from the rest of the palace. I'm certain that King Saralegui has them both guarded." 

Yuuri blinked. "How would you know that?" 

"I told him," the guard who was standing rigidly beside the door to the dining room said in a familiar voice, as a bright blue eye winked at us from the shadow of a helmet. 

"Josak! What are you doing there?" 

A shrug of armoured shoulders. "One of the officers asked for volunteers to guard 'His Majesty's guests' during breakfast, so I volunteered—mostly so as not to get on the bad side of the guys who caught me sneaking into the barracks in the middle of the night. I'd have gotten there earlier, but . . ." 

"The debriefing took longer than either of us expected," Conrad put in, with a smile that at least seemed more sincere than the ones around the breakfast table. 

"Exactly." Josak shifted position, wincing just a little bit, and gave Conrad a rueful grin. 

"You seem a little stiff, Gurrier—are you alright?" Wolfram asked. 

"Don't worry about it, Lord von Bielefelt—it's just something I . . . sat on. _You_ know." 

"Hmph. Well, you should be more careful then . . . and I do _not_ 'just sit on' things that may do me injury." 

"Well, you're young yet," Josak said, and Conrad made a stifled choking sound. "I dare say you'll learn about it . . . eventually." He cast a meaningful glance in Yuuri's direction, and I made a sound very much like the one Conrad had just produced. I felt like I'd just swallowed something squirmy. Josak sleeping with Conrad I could accept, but I damned well knew that Yuuri and Wolfram hadn't done anything like that yet. If they had, Wolfram would be grinning like a cat who had gotten into the cream, and Yuuri . . . Well, I was sure he would have been different, in some indefinable way. Although that did remind me . . . 

"By the way, Wolfram, I need to talk to you for a moment," I said firmly. 

The blonde Mazoku blinked. "Shouri . . . Well, I suppose it's okay. Why not?" 

"Let's go, Shibuya," Murata said. "They can catch up with us later, if they want to." 

"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to herd me away?" Yuuri asked. 

"Because you're not a complete idiot," I said. "Go on. For the third time, I promise we'll give Wolfram back to you in one piece." 

"You'd better," Yuuri said, dropping his voice so that for a moment, it almost sounded like he'd entered Maoh Mode without any of the usual pyrotechnics. 

"The third time?" Wolfram said as the others headed off, with a dangerous note in his voice. 

"He's just being paranoid because I've been overprotective in the past," I said. "Look, I don't want to have this conversation in the hallway. Is there anywhere near here that we can be more private?" 

"That door leads to a small sitting room, I believe," Geneus said, nodding down the corridor to the left. "Alternatively, if you wish to be absolutely certain that we are not overheard, we could go out to the gardens again—there is little scope there for concealed listeners. However, I do not believe such extensive precautions are necessary in this case: this discussion is merely personal, rather than something involving state secrets." 

"The sitting room should be good enough," I said. 

"You're starting to worry me," Wolfram said. 

I gave him a heartless smile. "That's the idea." 

The sitting room really was quite small: four chairs, a low table, and a houseki-powered lamp that Wolfram flinched away from as we entered. Still, it was the perfect spot for what I had in mind, since there was only one exit, and Josak was blocking it, making it difficult for my brother's fiancé to storm off in a huff until I was done with him. 

I dropped into one of the chairs, letting Geneus take the one nearest the door. Wolfram remained standing. 

"Sit down," I told him. 

"Not until—" 

" _Sit._ " My best imitation of Bob's command voice made Wolfram's eyes snap open wide. He sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. "Now, what's this I hear about you chasing my brother through Blood Pledge Castle throwing fireballs?" 

" _That's_ what this is about? Did that wimp put you up to this?" 

"Actually, he didn't want me to say anything. He was too afraid of hurting your feelings . . . leaving me, as usual, to deal with this crap for him." I let that sink in for a moment, then added, "This insane jealousy of yours has got to stop. And if it doesn't . . . well, as the eldest son, I'm the one who's going to be head of the family, not Yuuri. By Japanese tradition, I could forbid your marriage, and he wouldn't be able to say anything about it." I wasn't, I told myself, _quite_ stretching the truth beyond recognition by not admitting to little details like the fact that those traditions were mostly ignored these days, or that even if they hadn't been, I wouldn't have been able to do anything while our father was still alive. 

Wolfram's expression instantly became . . . kind of closed-in, I guess. "Like that would make that much of a difference. Yuuri . . . obviously doesn't want me that way." 

"I don't think Yuuri knows _what_ he wants yet," I said. 

"Yuuri-sama is only sixteen," Geneus added. "At his age, would you have had any interest in a sexual partnership?" 

"That's different," Wolfram said to the tabletop. "I mean, just look at him—it's obvious that he's old enough for a relationship." 

"Appearances can be deceiving, especially among those of mixed blood. In Yuuri-sama's case, although he seems to be reaching physical maturity at a rate similar to a full-blooded human, and his magical growth is keeping pace, his emotional and, perhaps, sexual development appear to me to be lagging behind." 

"You're the first person he's ever had anything like a romantic relationship with," I added, hammering the point home relentlessly. "And it isn't because he's been trying to find someone and failing, either—it's because he hasn't really been interested. Shove a picture of a naked woman in front of his face, and he just wrinkles his nose." Something which I'd actually done a couple of times, to gauge his reaction. 

Wolfram blinked several times. "But if he's not ready, then why did he slap me?" 

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, how long had he been in Shin Makoku when that happened? He didn't know that this world even existed until he landed here the first time, so how was he supposed to know about that screwy upper-class custom for proposing marriage? He hit you because he was pissed off at you. If he'd been thinking, he would have punched you instead, and this whole mess never would have happened." 

"Then why did he reinstate the engagement after I'd formally withdrawn from it?" 

I blinked and glanced at Josak, because he hadn't told me about that when I'd decanted him on the ship to Big Cimaron. 

"After the Ten Nobles tried to make Wolfram Maoh, I think," the spy supplied. "Little Lord Brat went running home to the von Bielefelt lands, and the boyo chased after him. I hadn't heard about him withdrawing the engagement, though." 

"He probably did it because he wanted things to go back to the way they were," I said slowly. "Look. Wolfram. I'm not saying that you're wrong for each other. I'm saying that I want you to stop pushing. Right now, Yuuri just wants to be friends, and it's obvious that he feels especially strongly that he wants to be _your_ friend, or he wouldn't put up with half the crap you pull. He may not like to fight, but he isn't stupid, either. Give him a chance to grow up, and then maybe you'll be able to have the kind of relationship that you want. But if you keep on with the kind of stuff you've been doing, I'm going to have to kill you before you have the chance." 

Wolfram snorted. "You think you could?" He was trying to glare at me and Josak simultaneously, still ticked off by the "Little Lord Brat" remark, no doubt. 

"Shouri's maryoku is stronger than yours, and he is mastering it at a phenomenal rate," Geneus said. "If he truly wished you dead, you would have little chance of escaping." 

Wolfram stared at me for a moment, then looked down at the table again. "It isn't that I mean to hurt Yuuri. Not really. It's just that he makes me so _jealous_! He surrounds himself with all these people, and he treats them just as well as he treats me, and I . . . I just . . . I can't hold it in when he does that." His hands balled into fists where they rested on his knees. 

"Work on it," I said, and Wolfram's head snapped up to stare at me again. "Everyone else seems to think there's no way you'll ever learn to control your temper, but I don't believe that," I continued. "You're a good swordsman, you're pretty good at majutsu, and you have all the social graces when you bother to use them. None of those things could have been entirely fun to learn. You couldn't have gotten to where you are if you weren't capable of some level of self-discipline. I'm asking you to use it. And does Yuuri really treat you the same way he does everyone else? There are exactly three people he goes to for help whenever he hatches one of his hare-brained schemes: Murata, Conrad . . . and you. You're the person he spends the most time with, and one of the few he trusts absolutely, whatever he may say. People have built marriages on less." 

Now Wolfram looked thoughtful, which was what I'd been hoping for. 

"Try returning his trust for once," I urged. "You know he would tie himself into knots before he would intentionally hurt you. Stop being so damned insecure—it just makes you look bad. Treat him the way he deserves to be treated, and I'll try to point him in your direction when he does start to be interested in a real relationship. In the meanwhile, you might want to think about how you're going to go about courting him." 

Wolfram blinked. "Courting . . ." 

"You kind of skipped over that part by accident, remember? Think about what might make him _want_ to be with you. What do you have to offer him as a person? I know there's more to you than good looks and a pedigree. Try to do it right." Damnit, my mouth was getting dry. "Make him happy—really, genuinely happy—and I'll be glad to call you my brother." 

I got up without waiting for a reply and nodded to Josak, who opened the door for me. Outside in the hall, I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. I was surprised to find that I wasn't actually sweating, because confronting Wolfram had, in a weird kind of way, been tougher than facing down the Originator. At least that had been straightforward. 

"I'm not sure whether that did any good or not," I said to Geneus, who had left the room with me. 

"More good than harm, I believe. You surprised him and made him think. Without that, he would have continued in the same pattern indefinitely. Now there is at least a possibility for positive change." 

I sighed. "I hope you're right." 

"Do you want to rejoin your brother?" 

"I don't think so. Let's go to the library. A nice, dull book about Cimaronese history sounds like just what I need right now." 

Geneus snorted softly, but he also took my hand as we headed off down the hall. 

We spent the morning reading and had a private lunch in a small room just off the library proper. Then I did some majutsu practice and around an hour of sword training with Josak. It would have been a nice quiet day, if we hadn't been in Small Cimaron with a trip to Seisakoku looming on the horizon. 

Dinner was tense again—unlike Yuuri, Geneus and I were invited to the official banquet with Saralegui and Lanzhil and Alazon, and had to at least pretend to be polite to all the royalty while we ate. Fortunately, Lanzhil didn't say much, but there was something about his expression that got on my nerves . . . and on Saralegui's too, judging from the way the young king was watching his counterpart. 

"Something's wrong," I said afterwards, to Geneus, as we walked down the hallway that led back to our rooms. 

"I agree. Even the spirits seem to be tense tonight, although they are unable to communicate why. We had best sleep in our clothes," my lover concluded grimly. 

I nodded. 

We cuddled together that night in bed for comfort rather than sex, or at least I did. Geneus just seemed to want to hold on to me. He wrapped his arms around my body the moment we slid between the sheets, and refused to let go, as though he were afraid I would vanish . . . and maybe he was. I didn't mind that, but it kind of bothered me that he was taking this so seriously. It made me more on edge than I would otherwise have been, and it took me more than an hour to fall into an uneasy doze. 

I woke to Geneus shaking me, plus the sound of fighting out in the hallway and the faint smell of smoke. 

"What's going on?" I whispered. 

"I do not know, but I also do not believe it would be wise for us to remain here, in ignorance," came the grim reply. 

"Right." I grabbed my boots and my swordbelt—also my woolen jacket, because if we ended up outside, I didn't want to have to go in my shirtsleeves. 

I probed past the door with my maryoku before easing it open. There wasn't anyone alive outside, but I felt an agglomeration of water and metal that turned out to be a corpse: a man in the uniform of the palace guard, his throat crossed by a wide red wound just under the chin. Fortunately, it wasn't Josak. 

Geneus and I exchanged glances. 

"Find Yuuri and get out," I said, and he nodded. "Do you think Lanzhil . . . ?" 

"Most likely, his intent was only to bring the insubordinate king of a vassal state to heel," Geneus said. "He must be in dire political straits, and need to show some kind of success to prevent the other noble houses from turning on him, although I did not expect him to try anything this overtly stupid—or perhaps 'desperate' would be a better term. Our presence is merely a bonus for him, and if we are fortunate, he will not be aware that your brother is even on this continent." 

_Yuuri,_ I thought as my lover led the way along the hall. _Yuuri, please be okay._


	29. Chapter 23

I should have known that my little brother would care more about other people's survival than his own, though, even under these circumstances. When we got to his room, I thought it was empty at first—the door was open and unguarded. I stood in the doorway and muttered a curse. 

"Any ideas on where else to try?" I asked Geneus, who was standing with his back to me, keeping an eye on the hallway. We'd managed to detour around the fighting on the way over, but we'd gotten closer than I would have liked a couple of times. 

"He went to check on Saralegui, Shibuya's-big-brother. I stayed here because I figured that you'd need someone to point you in the right direction when you turned up." Murata poked his head out from behind the hangings on the four-poster bed. "If it's any reassurance, Conrad, Wolfram, and Josak are all with him." 

I grimaced. "Three men against a small army? That idiot." 

Murata offered me a skewed grin as he slid off the bed. "Yeah, but if he were less of an idiot, he wouldn't have accomplished nearly as much as he has, weirdly enough. Let's go." 

Geneus took the lead again, through narrow back hallways and up a servants' staircase. 

"You seem to know this place extremely well," Murata said at one point, as we paused at an intersection of corridors. 

"I memorized the floor plan while I was still working for Alazon, in case of . . . necessity," Geneus said, tactfully leaving out the fact that, in that context, "necessity" probably meant, "in case I ever needed to burgle the place or assassinate someone here." 

"Ah." Murata too was capable of tact when he wanted to be. 

The fighting was heaviest in the hallways just outside Saralegui's room, and there was no easy way that I could see to get the palace guards out of the way so that I could mow down Lanzhil's men with majutsu. Fortunately, Geneus raised his hand before I could do anything stupid, and, with a massive pulse of power, put them all to sleep. Then he reeled back against the wall. 

"Hey! Are you all right?" The question burst from my lips with more force than strictly necessary—I was terrified. It had been bad enough seeing him collapse in Alazon's throne room when we'd still technically been enemies, but if he fell apart now, I was going to— 

Geneus looked at me, and smiled ruefully. "Sending a man whose blood is up into sleep requires considerable effort, and there were more of them than I expected. Had I known, I would have asked you to lend me your power as well. As it is, I drained myself more than is, perhaps, prudent under these circumstances, but I will recover in a few minutes." 

We picked our way among the slumbering bodies to Saralegui's door . . . and found the room empty once we'd opened it. I muttered the same word I'd spoken in the doorway to Yuuri's room. 

Geneus, however, walked straight across to what looked like a blank piece of wall near the head of the bed. He considered it for a moment, head tilted, then shifted his left foot slightly so that he was standing on a particular stone, and reached over to feel for something behind the pillows. 

There was a soft _click_ , and a section of wall in front of him swung outward. 

"The dust has been disturbed," he said, looking inside. "Recently. They went this way." 

"Where does this go?" I asked. 

"It is one of several branches of a larger secret passage leading down to the lowest level," Geneus replied. "The entrance to the escape-way proper is down there, under one of the coffins in the royal mortuary, which must be unbolted from the floor before the passage can be used. We had best hurry." 

He conjured a ball of fire to light our way . . . and staggered back against the wall, sagging, one hand going to his head. I lunged forward, grabbed his hand, offered him my maryoku and felt the tiniest hint of a drain moving into and through him. 

"Thank you, beloved," he said softly, and it was all I could do not to develop a goofy grin despite the seriousness of the situation. I didn't think I would ever get tired of him calling me that, or saying _Shouri_ with the particular inflection he used only when the two of us were alone. 

We entered the passageway together, with Murata just behind us. I looked down, and blinked. 

"I'm no expert at tracking," I said slowly, "but I'm pretty sure that some of that isn't bootprints." 

"The marks of a long skirt, I believe," Geneus said. "Alazon may be with them. What worries me more is that I see the prints of only five pairs of boots, three of which are large—Beryes, Lieutenant Gurrier, and Lord Weller, most likely—and one of those is deeply marked, as though the man in question was carrying something heavy. One of the younger men may have been wounded. I only hope that it is not Yuuri-sama." 

_Shit._ My eyes slid shut for just a moment, and I tried to reach forward with my maryoku. _Yuuri, are you there? Are you all right?_

But there were too many people in the palace, and too much chaos just outside the walls of the passage, and I couldn't find him, or the banked ember of Wolfram. All I could do was pray, except that I had no idea to what. Buddha and the kami weren't likely to hear anything coming from this world, I'd never believed in the Christian god, and asking Shin'ou for intervention was just like asking for trouble. _He'd_ better _be okay, you blonde idiot, or I'm going to go up to your temple and kick your ass into next Tuesday!_

I think—I _think_ —that the snort of laughter I heard after sending up my unprayer was just my imagination, although with him, you can never be sure. 

We climbed down two staircases so narrow that we had to descend single-file, Geneus' arm stretched out awkwardly behind him so that he could maintain his grip on my hand. There was less dust after the first set of stairs, as though the passages on the ground level got swept out occasionally. Although if they were _secret_ passages . . . I snorted softly, imagining Beryes wielding a broom. And wearing a frilly apron with "I [heart] Saralegui" written on it and a fussy, lacy little cap to keep the dust out of his hair—I mean, why not? Mom probably would have thought it was an excellent idea. 

Come to think of it, Mom would probably have driven Beryes nuts. 

The second staircase dumped us out into a wide passage lined with pillars that utterly destroyed any line of sight along it, and vanished behind a swinging stone door a few moments after Murata stepped off the bottom stair. I extended my maryoku again, but this time felt only air and stone, and . . . what was that? Something wet . . . 

This time, I took the lead, threading in and out between the pillars and pulling Geneus with me. The wetness, when we found it, was a long smear of blood on the side of a pillar, and a puddle at its base. 

Geneus held out his free hand for a moment. "Houjutsu residues. They stopped here, mere minutes ago, and both Beryes and Alazon tried to heal the injured man." 

Which meant that whoever-it-was had made it this far, alive. "How much further to the mortuary?" 

"Another minute or two, at our current pace. However, we will need to be a bit more cautious. As you may have noticed, this area is not part of the secret passages." 

Which explained why it was dustless. "We can't afford to waste time, either. Let's get going." 

We almost missed the mortuary entrance, which was narrow and hidden behind a pillar. Actually, we _would_ have missed it, if not for the voices. 

" . . . walk on my own now," were the first intelligible words that I picked up. 

"But—" I went weak with relief at the sound of Yuuri's voice. 

"Your Majesty, that is exactly what you must _not_ do," Beryes said firmly. "The blade nicked an artery. If you put any amount of strain on your leg, you may bleed to death." 

"You fuss too much, Beryes," Saralegui was saying as I stepped into the large room where he was sitting against the base of a coffin, crudely bandaged left leg extended in front of him. Yuuri, Beryes, and Alazon were clustered around him. Off to the side, Conrad and Josak were bent over another casket, beside which lay a skeleton wrapped in the rotting remains of a dress. Wolfram stood on guard, with his sword in his hand and his spine very straight as he peered suspiciously into the corners of the room. 

"It's your own fault for letting yourself get double-crossed by someone like Lanzhil," I said. 

Yuuri's head jerked up. "Shouri!" 

"I admit that I didn't expect him to smuggle soldiers into the country inside empty wine casks," Saralegui said. "An error in judgement. I should just have poisoned his breakfast and had done with it—I'm joking, Yuuri," he added when my brother turned a little green. 

"Didn't sound like it," Yuuri muttered a bit more loudly than he might actually have intended. 

Off to the side, there was a cracking sound and a thud, and Josak said, "Shin'ou's hairy balls! That one was rusted right through." 

"Are you alright?" Conrad asked. 

"Yeah—just startled me a bit when it let go, that's all." 

"Then this is the last . . ." Creaking noises, and a clink, then grunts and a thump. I looked in their direction, and discovered that the coffin had been lifted off its low pedestal. There was a large wrench leaning against its side. 

"Looks like we don't have to try the one in the other corner after all," Josak said. "'S dark and hellishly dusty, though. And narrow. Want me to go first, Captain?" 

"Not without a lantern," Conrad said. 

"I'll go," Wolfram said. "I can manage enough majutsu to conjure a light, even here." 

Conrad hesitated for a moment before nodding. "All right, then. You and me, then Alazon-sama, His Majesty, the Lord Sage, Beryes-san with Saralegui-sama, Shouri-dono, and Geneus-dono." 

"And I'm rear guard," Josak completed. "So let's get this show on the road before Lanzhil and company figure out where we've gone." 

Wolfram looked down into the black opening that had been hidden underneath the coffin, grimaced, and got down on his hands and knees to back over the edge. We all waited tensely until a flare of light from below announced that he had reached the bottom. 

"I think you had best revise the order of march to place the lighter people first, Brother—the ladder was flaking apart in my hands." The blonde's voice was louder than I had expected, suggesting that he wasn't really all that far below us. "It looks like I'm in a natural fissure in the rock, leading off in both directions." 

I extended my maryoku in a quick probe. "The branch that would be to your left if you're facing the ladder is a dead end." 

There was a moment of silence. Then, "How would _you_ know?" 

"Because there isn't much air in that direction—just rock, with a little water trickling down through it. What?" I added as I realized that Yuuri, Conrad, and Murata were all staring at me. 

"You've been training him in sounding." Murata's tone of voice made the comment into an accusation. 

"Why not?" Geneus asked. "He wished to learn." My lover had his chin up and his mouth compressed into a thin line. 

"Those techniques have been lost since before the war." 

"Then it is high time that they were recovered." The two of them glared at each other. 

"Um, guys? Maybe this . . . isn't the best time," Yuuri said. 

Geneus smoothed his face and bowed. "Quite right, Yuuri-sama." Murata was still frowning, though, and his expression didn't change as he went to climb down the ladder. 

Sending everyone down in more-or-less order of weight mostly just meant that Conrad went after Murata, Yuuri, and Alazon, and Beryes and Saralegui went next-to-last. That meant some shuffling around down below, with Geneus and I backing into the dead end to let the big Shinzoku and his burden get in front of us, but eventually we got it sorted out. 

Josak was still last, although he obviously wasn't heavier than Beryes and Saralegui together. He was about three-quarters of the way down when we all heard a metallic _crack_. Josak pulled the rung on which his topmost hand had been resting away from the wall and gave it a bemused look before letting it go. Then he released the ladder and dropped the last three feet, landing in a crouch beside the discarded bar of rusty metal. 

"Hope we don't have to go back this way," he said. 

"The passage was intact the last time I walked it from the far end," Beryes rumbled. "Although I clearly should have paid more attention to the state of the ladder." 

"So where does it come out?" I asked. _And what are we supposed to do when we get there?_

"In the hills below the city, in the general direction of the harbour." 

Which did give me an idea. "Is the ship you were preparing for us there?" 

"It is." 

"Well, that gives us somewhere to go, anyway." 

"I can't go to the ship," Saralegui said. "Have to take the castle back. My father'd never forgive . . ." There was something not-quite-right about his voice. 

"Your Majesty?" Beryes said, worry in his voice. 

"I'm fine. It's just . . . it's awfully cold in here . . ." 

Actually, it was a lot warmer than I would have expected. And Beryes' shoulders were getting tense. 

"Try to relax," the big Shinzoku said. "Sleep if you can. Nothing will happen for a time, and you need your strength." 

"Is he . . ." I swallowed, unable to finish that question out with the required, _dying?_

"He has taken three serious injuries in a very short period, and his body is losing tolerance for such abuse," Geneus said. "He will survive, provided that he is properly tended and the wound does not break open and cause him to bleed out, but he will be ill and weak for some time." 

"Then . . ." 

"It's up to him, if he's in any condition to decide by the time we get out of here," Murata said from up ahead. 

"We have to—" Yuuri began, but Conrad cut him off. 

"Backing him up, if that's what you choose to do, will mean sending the army over here, and Small Cimaron isn't part of the League . . . or at least, not yet. You're going to have your work cut out for you, convincing the heads of the Ten Families that helping King Saralegui is the right thing to do." 

"It's going to be a war, Shibuya," Murata added. "You're not going to be able to sort this one out with a little majutsu and a speech about justice. I'm not saying 'Don't do it,' but . . . think about it. Think about it _hard_ , because there might not be any going back this time." 

I gritted my teeth, repressing the almost-instinctive exclamation of, _War? Like hell are you getting involved in a war!_ I'd promised that I wouldn't force my protection on Yuuri anymore. Geneus touched my shoulder briefly, suggesting that he had seen and understood my tension, and wanted to reassure me. 

"I guess . . . maybe I didn't do the best possible thing after all, by leaving Lanzhil alive to be pulled out of the water," Yuuri said at last. "But I can't . . . I couldn't . . ." 

"You do not wish to kill anyone," Geneus provided. "And under most circumstances, that is an admirable position to take. However, a ruler is best advised not to restrict his options in that way—at a certain point, his obligations toward his nation and its citizens _must_ outweigh those he feels toward the lives of others." 

"No," Yuuri said instantly. "I'm not going to believe that. Everyone's lives are important. Mine and yours and Shouri's. Conrad's and Wolfram's and Murata's. Saralegui's, Beryes', Alazon's, even Lanzhil's. I'm not going to give any of them up. Never." 

There was a long pause as Geneus digested that. 

"As you wish, Yuuri-sama," he said at last. "You are the successor that he chose, and I will do everything I can to see your will carried out. I only hope that you will never have to make the decisions that I foresee being forced on you." 

"Thank you, Geneus-san," Yuuri said. "I can use all the help I can get. I know that doing things the way I've been trying to do them isn't going to get any easier . . . but I still think that what I'm doing is right." 

_When did he grow up so much?_ I wondered. Kind of embarrassing that my little brother had more courage of his convictions than I did. 

Suddenly, Wolfram swore. A moment later, Conrad called back to us, "Beryes-san, there appears to be a thorn bush in front of us." 

"It conceals the exit," the big Shinzoku said. "But I don't think we can leave it there this time." 

"It seems dry enough to catch well . . . will there be a problem if Wolfram burns it?" 

"Unlikely. As of this summer, it was largely isolated by rocks, and I would be surprised if Lanzhil can spare the men to patrol this far out as yet." 

"Good," Wolfram growled. A moment later, light flared up ahead of us—from the feel of it, the little blonde had to have expended just about all the majutsu he had access to here. Well, it was cheery, anyway. Even Saralegui seemed to rally a bit, although he was still slumped with his chin on Beryes' shoulder . . . and Geneus was leaning on mine. 

"Tired?" I asked softly, turning so that I could slide my arm around him. 

"Mmm," came the reply. "My own fault for having expended so much maryoku." 

"As soon as we get to the ship, we can go back to bed," I said. "It would've been nice if Lanzhil had waited until morning to launch his little coup." 

"And give up the element of surprise? Even he is not so foolish." 

"Do you think he can actually hold Small Cimaron?" 

"For a time, perhaps. Large parts of his army are barely under control, but Small Cimaron's troops have been diminished by half over the past year, since your brother forced the release of the conscripts from the vassal states. In the end, it depends on whether his immediate subordinates accept this as sufficiently impressive to leave off their attempts to topple him, and I do not know whom he may have jailed or otherwise silenced since the two of us parted ways. Lanzhil is belligerent as well as incompetent." 

The firelight danced crazily, then faded. 

"We're clear," Conrad called back a moment later. 

We emerged from a cleft in a hill that had a nice view of the harbour town nearest the castle, where the dimly-seen forms of several ships bobbed at anchor. The wind was biting, and here and there, the rocks cupped a bit of snow between them, shielding it from the sun that might otherwise have melted it. The three-quarter moon now above us couldn't do that, of course, but it did reflect strikingly off the patches of whiteness. 

Saralegui was shivering, teeth chattering, and Beryes looked stricken in the guttering light of what was left of the burning bush, but once again none of us had any extra clothing. In the end, Beryes removed his own coat and wrapped it around his charge, leaving himself with only a thin shirt as protection against the winter wind. 

"There is no indication that the troops have reached this area yet," Geneus said. "We may have a chance, if we move quickly." 

Which meant scrambling the rest of the way down the hillside in the dark as fast as we could. I had my maryoku to tell me where the rocks were and what the angle of the slope was, but others weren't so lucky. Wolfram, tired from expending so much of his power, fell twice, Alazon's skirt caught on thorns, and Josak, at one point, slid nearly ten feet down a slope he apparently hadn't expected to be so sharp, although he didn't lose his balance. Then we were threading our way among the houses—hovels, really—at the edge of town and trying not to catch our bootheels in the ruts in the frozen mud of the streets. 

Moving around became easier as we reached the more affluent districts, with their cobblestones and torches bolted to the walls, but here we ran into another problem: people. Guards, young men out for a night on the town, servants whose masters had released them late hurrying home. Curious strangers who might figure out that four of us had black hair and eyes, or recognize Beryes or the wrapped-up Saralegui. 

I took a deep breath and reached inward. Wind majutsu still didn't come as naturally to me as water, but Geneus was in no condition to cast this himself, and I doubted Yuuri knew how. I wasn't capable of the kind of full-scale, sophisticated illusion that would have made as look as though we were something or someone else, but I _could_ blur everyone else's perception of us, encouraging them to look away and making it difficult to grasp details. It would have to be enough. Twist and twist and . . . there. 

Geneus gave me an approving smile as I turned my attention back to the outside world. I was starting to understand why the techniques he had been teaching me were mostly lost—they took one hell of a lot of concentration, even for what I assumed was beginner-level stuff. Less about raw power, and more about building up frameworks in your head, using a set of rules that I still didn't entirely understand. 

We slipped past a pair of singing, happy drunks and an old man replacing a burnt-out torch. The next turn brought us to a road that ran straight and steep all the way down to the docks. It was so slick with frozen sea spray we could almost have skated to the bottom. At one point Yuuri almost tobogganed down instead. It was only Conrad's quick reflexes that kept him from belly-flopping in the middle of the street and then sliding until he fell off the end of a dock. 

Beryes wasn't so lucky. Normally he would have been the last person I would have expected to slip, but his awkward burden and the lack of protection from the cold must have been telling on him, because he lost his footing about midway down and dropped to one knee with a grunt. That must have jarred Saralegui, because the half-Shinzoku raised his head and blinked at his surroundings. 

"The harbour . . . What are we doing here? We have to go back to the castle!" 

"Don't be stupid," I said. "Normally I wouldn't care very much if you wanted to wander off and get yourself killed, but I know Yuuri would." 

"You are in no condition to direct a battle against Lanzhil or anyone else," Geneus added. "In fact, I am surprised you are even awake. Avoiding capture is the best you can hope for right now." 

"If you wish me to stay behind and attempt to retake the castle, Your Majesty, I will," Beryes added. "But it will be easier if I know you are safe." 

"'Saralegui'." 

"Your Majesty?" 

"I've been meaning for some time . . . to tell you to call me by my name . . . when we're in private. Feels wrong the other way. After all, you're my uncle." 

A shiver ran through Beryes body, and I don't think it was from the cold. "As you wish . . . Saralegui." 

"Good. S'good. Stay with me." 

"As you wish," Beryes repeated softly as the young king subsided again, his head lolling against the older man's shoulder. 

I couldn't help but think that, while he hadn't donated any genes to him, Beryes was Saralegui's true father, the one who had raised and cared for him when his real parents had abandoned him. Alazon was staring at the two of them, but I couldn't read her expression at all. Wistful, but there was something else there too . . . jealousy? And yet it was by her own choice that she had let her son go. 

When we reached the docks, it was Beryes who had to lead off. He headed for the third ship on the left of the main pier. It was riding silently at anchor, unlit, gangplank raised, and if there was anyone on watch, I couldn't see them or sense them. There were people on board, though, more than a dozen of them, and mostly packed into a smallish space near the bow. 

"I think the crew's asleep," I said. "We need to get their attention." 

Conrad glanced around quickly, and then bent over to scoop something up from a hollow inside a pile of lumber. When he straightened up, he was packing a snowball. With his bare hands. I repressed a wince. Once it was shaped to his satisfaction, he paused, assumed a classic pitcher's pose, then wound up and threw. 

The snowball bounced off a metallic-feeling shadow with a _clang_ , and the effect of the sound was out of all proportion to how loud it was. The ship became a disturbed ant's nest, with men boiling up and onto the deck, weapons at ready, staring at us. 

Beryes directed his attention at one of them in particular, although I couldn't see any of them clearly enough to be able to pick out a specific man. "Captain Milos. Please let down the gangplank immediately, and prepare to cast off once we are aboard." 

"Beryes-san," the man he was addressing acknowledged. "Is that . . . ?" 

Beryes nodded. "There is an ongoing political . . . situation. We can discuss it once we are away from here." 

There was another long hesitation, during which I assume the captain must have been weighing his options. Then, "Well, get moving, you slugs! Get the gangplank out, and make ready to hoist anchor once they've all hit deck!" 

The words turned the ship from an anthill into an army. The sailors were rushing around with a purpose now, coiling ropes, hoisting sails, and doing I knew not what. The gangplank thumped to the dock between Geneus and Beryes, and Yuuri started straight for it, only to have his arm grabbed by Conrad. 

"We need to give them a couple of moments to tie it in place, Yuu-ri. And then we should let Beryes-san go first. He needs to get out of the wind." 

_I'm an idiot._ _That_ was what I should have done, before worrying about masking our presence here. I reached out and stilled the winds in this part of the dock, and Beryes' shivering, while it didn't stop, was reduced to a slight tremour. 

Geneus touched my arm. "Do not exhaust yourself." 

"I know, but we can't afford to let anyone freeze to death." 

"True enough, and I did not say you were doing the wrong thing. However, we may yet need your power and your brother's to see us safely clear of this place. Lanzhil may have far fewer naval vessels than he did before his ill-considered attack on Shin Makoku, but I would expect him to have committed some portion of the remainder to barricading the harbour. I can just sense the nearest of the pickets, and they seem to be disposed across the mouth of the harbour proper." 

"You can reach that far . . ." 

"You will be able to do as much, in time. An infant takes years to understand what his eyes and his ears are telling him—you cannot expect to master in less than a month a sense which you did not previously possess." 

Which was true enough, but . . . "I don't have time to mess around. For Yuuri's sake." _And for yours._

Both times I had broken through into Maoh mode, as Yuuri insisted on calling it, it had been because of a threat to Geneus' life, not my brother's. I still wasn't sure what that meant. Yuuri's life hadn't been threatened in my presence since that night on the hill. Before that, I might not have been ready—might not have been able to open that door at the bottom of my mind at all. 

Maybe you had to be pissed off or freaking out or just transported by emotion to find your way down there. Yuuri didn't seem able to enter that mode without going ballistic in some way, but Yuuri didn't seem much interested in learning to use his magic. Not on purpose. Could _I_ find my way there on purpose? Reach down into that level of my mind, find the door, and yank it open? Like probing for a toothache with the tip of my tongue? 

"You should go below," said a quiet voice at my elbow. Not Geneus. Conrad. "They're about to cast off, and we could get in the way if we stay on deck." 

I shook my head. "Geneus says we're going to run into some ships from Big Cimaron before we make it out of the harbour. I'm staying right where I am until I'm sure we're clear." Absently, I groped for Geneus with my maryoku and found him near the front of the ship, leaning against the rail there as the sailors cast off. 

"You trust him." 

"With my life," I said. "And that isn't just because we're sleeping together. I always have trusted him." 

"Even when you were enemies?" 

"I don't think we ever really were," I said slowly. "I mean, think about it—he was dependent on Alazon for his very existence, and yet he still stuck his neck out, more than once, to avoid harming Shin Makoku. He offered to break Yuuri out of prison in Big Cimaron, and then steered Alazon and the White Crow toward El, then me, rather than my brother. I don't think any of that was coincidence. His methods may have been a bit cold-blooded, but he was trying to do what he could for his country without getting himself killed outright. The deepest part of him was always the Great Sage, and always loved the nation that he helped to build." 

"And yet he attacked us, more than once." 

"And how often did he do any real damage? Okay, so he messed up the capital a bit, and some people did get hurt and maybe even killed during that, but in everything up to that point the guys from the White Crow were the ones who ended up hurt or dead. Some of it was probably luck, and him being thoroughly goal-directed, but all of it? All things considered, he's done us less harm than Saralegui or Alazon, or, hell, even Adalbert, and for better reasons." 

Conrad said nothing, which annoyed the heck out of me. 

"Do you honestly think I would expose Yuuri to anyone who might put him at risk?" I asked sharply. "I thought you knew me better than that, at least." 

"I thought . . . that you might be mistaken. Or that you hadn't thought things through. First love has a way of turning otherwise intelligent people into idiots." 

I flushed, but forced myself to keep my voice steady. "And now?" 

"And now I think _I_ was mistaken," Conrad said, with a smile. "And that you love him deeply." 

"He completes me," I said. "It's like . . . two puzzle pieces slotting together, I guess. I can't imagine being without him anymore." 

"And when you go back to your world?" 

"It's going to be tough," I admitted. "Even if I'm pretty sure that I know how to transport myself back and forth now. But I can't ask him to go with me—he's been in exile long enough. I'm just going to have to hammer out a workable commute schedule." 

"You could stay." 

They were words I'd been trying not to think, because they were oddly seductive. Stay in Shin Makoku, with Geneus, support Yuuri directly by working with the Alliance or on whatever other bits and pieces of his responsibilities that he didn't have time for himself . . . 

I shook my head firmly. "I promised Bob that I would take over from him, so that he could retire. And even after I train my successor, someone's going to have to look after our parents, and it pretty much has to be me. Yuuri isn't practical enough. It's going to be a long time before I'm free to do what I want." 

I was phrasing things like Earth had become a prison to me, I realized. And in a way, maybe it was. Or maybe it was just that this world was weirdly comfortable. I could accomplish things here, rather than being stuck in the lesser world of the student and apprentice that was going to be my lot for several more years on Earth. And while it might _matter_ that I was Mazoku, it didn't matter in quite the same _way_ on this side. Remembering to hide the majutsu that now came so naturally to me was going to be hell. 

If it's a prison, can you still call it home? 

"Shouri." 

I blinked, focusing on Geneus, who had left his position at the rail. 

"We are coming up on the picket ships," he said. "They appear to have a chain stretched between them." 

Now that he'd told me what it was, I could feel it too, a line of hard earth dipping under the water. 

Conrad was frowning. "We'll have to fight our way past, then." 

"I think I can get us over it," I said. "The chain's a bit slack in the middle, and we have a lot of water to work with. If we're really lucky, they may not even notice us, although I'm not betting on it. It's probably a good idea to alert the captain anyway, though, just in case." 

Conrad nodded, and turned to head for the rear of the ship. 

"I will not argue with you about this," Geneus said, "for I, too, see no other choice, but I hope you are aware that manipulating enough water to lift a sea vessel in an area where the spirits are not well-disposed toward our kind will likely result in you losing consciousness, and I do not have enough power of my own left to assist you." 

"I know. I think it's worth the risk. I mean, I'll wake up in a day or so, right?" 

"These constant collapses are not good for your health," Geneus said grimly. "You and your brother have both been extraordinarily fortunate up to this point. You could—" 

His voice stilled as my fingers touched his lips. 

"We've agreed that there's no choice this time," I said. "I understand that I'm taking a risk. You can tell me all the details afterwards, because if I get worried and freeze up now, it'll endanger everyone. I promise that I'm not going to leave you alone." 

A slight tremour ran through him, and I knew that I'd guessed right: that was exactly what he didn't want to admit he was afraid of. How many lovers had he been separated from by death, either his or theirs? Shin'ou might have been the first and most memorable, but I was willing to bet that he hadn't been the last. 

I hugged him, and felt him slowly unfreeze and wrap his arms around me in return. 

"Hold me while I do it?" I said softly. 

"Of course." 

I leaned into him, letting my eyes slide shut as I felt him take my weight. What I needed to do here was the easiest thing of all, I told myself. I'd been able to move large amounts of water around right after I'd made my elemental contract, without any training at all, although I'd been embarrassingly sloppy at it. I wasn't going to make a fool of myself this time, though. I knew what I was doing. He'd taught me that, and so much more. 

When I touched the ocean with my power, it felt like coming home. Incredible amounts of water, and all of it . . . considered me a friend, I guess. I coaxed it to gather into a wave under our ship, lifting it up and pushing it forward, toward the lowest point of the chain. I could feel the strength pouring out of me, but it wasn't a bad feeling. The water was safe and warm against my mind, and Geneus held me and supported me, both with his body and with the dregs of his power, as the deck surged upward under our feet. Keep the water moving and the ship straight as we soared up and over and slid down the far side into the trough on the far side of the chain and . . . done. 

"Shouri?" 

"Hmm?" With an effort, I raised my head from Geneus' shoulder and looked at my brother. For a moment, I saw two of him, but then I forced my eyes to focus. 

"Are you . . . okay?" 

"Yeah, just tired as heck. It _is_ the middle of the night, after all, and I've used a lot of maryoku in the past few days. If there's a bunk free, it had damned well better have our names on it." 

"Well, the captain had to shuffle some people around a bit to make up for unexpected royalty, but he did manage to find space for everyone." When had Murata come up behind me? I still couldn't sense him. I felt like I was wrapped in a fluffy blanket, and nothing around me was quite real. "You two are in one of the smaller guest cabins. Don't worry, it isn't far." 

I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, relying on Geneus to support and guide me as we headed below. The moment I felt the edge of a bed bump against my legs, I toppled face-first onto it. I heard Geneus sigh and felt him begin to pull one of my boots off, but I was asleep before he got to the second one.


	30. Chapter 24

It hadn't taken us a week to get from our first kiss to screwing each other on any horizontal surface that stayed still for more than a few moments, I reflected as I bit my lower lip to keep from moaning too loudly. And I didn't regret one bit of it . . . although I still had enough shame to hope that Yuuri never saw me like this, bent over a table with my pants around my ankles and holding my own ass spread while Geneus pushed inside me with tortuous slowness. It was a maddening, heavenly sensation and I was loving every second of it, although if he hadn't been holding my hips in place, I don't think I would have been able to keep myself from pushing back. 

I gasped as I felt him seat himself fully at last, and reached for him tentatively with my maryoku. It was the first time I had attempted to give him such a nonphysical caress, and I'm sure it was clumsy . . . but it netted me a sharply indrawn breath and a series of internal touches, power to power, that had me whispering his true name like a prayer. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had been able to bring me to orgasm with those alone . . . hell, he might have been able to make me come just by _looking_ at me, with light smouldering in his eyes and the tiniest hint of a smile quirking the corner of his mouth, making me think of everything he had . . . of everything _we_ had done together. 

"I want to be able to see you," I blurted out. 

"One moment, then." 

I almost groaned as he withdrew from me, but I had asked for it, hadn't I? There were soft sounds from behind me. 

"Turn around, Shouri." 

I straightened up and turned, and found him sitting in the chair which, like the bolted-down table, had come with our tiny shipboard room. Shirtless, with his trousers open and his cock at attention, smiling warmly at me and watching me with gleaming eyes . . . he was a beautiful sight, and I forced myself to stop for a moment and drink it in before I gave in to my urges, kicked one foot loose from my discarded pants, and straddled him. I lowered my body as quickly as I dared, letting his cock slide into me and fill me back up, seeing him shiver as I encased him completely. 

He wove his fingers through my hair and pulled my head down for a kiss, long and hard and carnal, fucking me with his tongue even as our lower bodies remained motionless. Then his other hand settled into that familiar grip at the base of my cock, and he made the first small upward thrust. I moved with him, raising myself higher, so that he withdrew past my prostate, and then back down again. The pulse of pleasure that moved through my body left me breathless. 

"More," I whispered. "More, _please . . ._ " And his name, the beautiful name that I used only when we were together like this. 

"Shouri . . ." His free hand found its way under the shirt that still hung, open, from my shoulders, and traced the length of my spine in a slow, sensuous movement. "Beloved . . ." Down to my stomach now, palm rubbing over my navel, fingers tracing my abs, and then lower still, playing with my balls, pressing up just so as my body slid down, and only his grip kept me from spilling all over him as he pinned my prostate neatly between his hand and his cock. "Show me how much you love me," he whispered as I rose again, and this time he leaned forward and pinched the skin over my collarbone between his teeth as he relaxed his grip down below. Pleasure ornamented with a tiny nip of pain shot through me, and I spilled myself all over his hand, squeezing him and feeling the long pulse as he filled me. 

I hadn't topped him yet. I was sure that I eventually would, but not yet. Not until I was more confident and sure I had something to offer him . . . and had had him inside me at least a hundred more times. I had to admit that I really got off on being penetrated . . . would he enjoy that too? Did he fantasize about it? He never really _asked_ for anything during sex . . . 

He caressed my cheek, thumb tracing the line of my lower lip in what was becoming a familiar gesture. "Why so pensive?" 

"I was just wondering what you enjoy the most. About being with me." 

"Because I always go along with what you ask for when we are together?" 

"You read my mind again." Figuratively speaking, of course—even wind majutsu couldn't give you true telepathy. 

"Does that bother you?" 

"No—and you're changing the subject." 

"Well, then. What I desire the most of you is not sexual, and you have been giving it to me all along without any need for me to ask, as though you were unconsciously aware of my wishes." 

I licked my lips. "And that is . . . ?" 

"Simply to be touched gently and with affection. Every time you embrace me, or hold my hand, or kiss me, you are giving me what I need the most. I have been alone a great deal, Shouri, in all of the lives that I most clearly remember, and it is not a state that I enjoy. Your companionship, and your steadfast acceptance of everything I am, is worth more to me than all the riches of both worlds." 

There was a lump in my throat, and I swallowed, trying to force it down. "Well, um, you're welcome?" It came out sounding even stupider than I'd expected, and I felt my face getting red. 

"I hope that does not mean you intend to stop," Geneus said, but I recognized the twinkle in his eye for what it was: he was teasing me again. 

"Never," I said. "If nothing else, I have to keep touching you to convince myself that you're real, because I don't deserve someone like you. But are you sure there's nothing else?" 

"Would you think less of me if I admitted that I truly do not know?" I must have looked surprised, because he continued, "Every body I have worn has reacted a bit differently when making love. Shin'ou was my only partner in my first lifetime, and he was . . . extremely singleminded. There are any number of things that I have yet to try while wearing this flesh, and I have no doubt that some of them will prove to be unexpectedly delightful. We will simply have to experiment, and see." 

"I think I like that idea. Experimenting." 

"I thought you might." 

There was a sharp knock on the door. "If you two are done doing the horizontal rumba for now, they're asking for you in the captain's cabin," Josak's voice said from the far side. 

"We'll be a couple of minutes," I said. "And I thought we were being quiet." 

"You were, but when you didn't notice the first time I knocked, and I couldn't find any signs that you'd gone overboard, I figured you had to be really busy." 

I snorted, but I also smiled. 

"What are we needed for?" Geneus asked, still through the door, as we quickly cleaned up. "I thought King Saralegui was resting in comfort." So had I: we hadn't seen or heard from the blonde king in the two days we'd been aboard ship, and Beryes had made a terse comment to the effect that it would most likely be a while before his charge's fever broke. 

"'Was' is the operative word. A little while ago, he started thrashing around and talking." 

"You don't need us to stop him from mumbling about six-legged chickens on roller skates in pidgin Ardati," I said. 

There was a snicker from the far side of the door, but it cut off quickly. "No, he really is talking. Full sentences, too. Except it's about stuff that he shouldn't know." 

Geneus hesitated momentarily in the act of fastening the front of his tunic. "Go on." 

"I can't follow a lot of it myself, but it's pretty obvious that it makes sense to Alazon and Beryes, and they say he's talking about people in Seisakoku—ones he's never met or even had anyone mention in front of him. They're not sure what's going on. Ken-kun was talking about something called a wind-wall, but he says he can't do one himself for some reason. That's why they want you." 

I looked at Geneus, who supplied, "A wind wall is akin to the dream-seals I taught you, but more powerful and imposed from without, rather than within. They must believe that some outside influence is tampering with his mind." 

"This far from Seisakoku?" I didn't know exactly how far we had to go, really, but if Seisakoku were that close to pretty much anywhere, someone would have to have noticed the blank spot in the middle of their nautical charts by now. 

"It does seem . . . rather improbable, but the fever would make him more than usually susceptible. Or he may be capturing his mother's subconscious worries and speaking them aloud . . . which I certainly would not consider restful." 

"Hmph." Well, it made sense that Alazon would be worried, underneath the flawless porcelain facade she preferred to cultivate—I know I would have been. She worked pretty damned hard at that facade, though. I'd never seen anyone else bounce back so quickly from a condition as deplorable as the one we'd found her in that cave. Present company included—even on that horrible day in front of the temple, Geneus had never been so degraded. "What kind of nightmares does a nightmare have?" 

"Extinction is a fear shared by almost all thinking beings. Other than that . . . perhaps it would fear becoming a good dream?" Geneus' thoughtful expression suggested he was quite taken by the whimsical question I'd let slip. "Are you ready?" 

I nodded. "Let's go." 

Josak led us up a flight of stairs—a ladder, as he called it, but I put that down to the weirdness of nautical terminology. The captain's cabin was three times the size of ours, which made it slightly larger than my room back in Tokyo, and the largest room on that relatively small ship. Into that space, the captain—whom I had yet to meet—had crammed a queen-sized bed, a chart table, two chairs, a dresser, a washstand, a coatrack, three bookshelves, and a brass-bound trunk that looked like a carbon copy of one I'd found in a storeroom in Bob's place in Switzerland. Add ten people to all of that, and it was a wonder that any of us could move. Hell, maybe it was even just as well that Wolfram had taken a creative approach to the problem of limited personal space and seated himself cross-legged on the chart table, with his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He looked kind of greenish, but that was always true of Wolfram when he was on a boat. 

Saralegui was thrashing around on the bed. He'd thrown all the blankets off, and given that Beryes was wearing a sheet draped over his head and down his shoulder, with one corner dangling into his eye, the younger man had to have flung them off with some violence. The big Shinzoku was sitting on the bed and trying to keep his nephew's bandaged leg pinned to the mattress. The cut the young king had taken wasn't healing all that quickly despite the houjutsu his relatives had been pumping into him—as I understood it, the series of injuries inflicted on him recently had left him with no physical reserves. 

Alazon, Yuuri, and Murata were all standing around the bed looking worried. Conrad, who was holding up the wall by the door, shifted to the side as we entered to make space for Josak and give Geneus and I room to thread our way over and around furniture to reach the bedside. 

Saralegui's eyes snapped open as we approached, but it was clear that, whatever he might be seeing around him, it wasn't us. "Hurts," he muttered, and then, "Uncle Calmeth . . . your eyes . . . why? What is happening . . . ?" 

What sent cold skittering up and down my spine, though, was that although the voice was Saralegui's, the accent wasn't. It did sound like the young king was channeling his mother, or maybe Beryes—they both had that same stilted way of speaking, and that odd twist of inflection on "happening" . . . 

"'Uncle' Calmeth?" I said. It had taken me a moment to place the name as that of the agriculturist who had been leading the xenophobe faction in Seisakoku as of fifteen years ago. 

"It makes no sense to us either," Beryes said. "Although we certainly knew him from childhood, there was never any fondness between our families . . . and King Saralegui has never met him, even as an infant." 

"There have been other names as well," Alazon added. "Some of which I had forgotten until Sara spoke them, and one or two that neither of us recognized." 

"But all of Seisakoku," Geneus murmured. It wasn't a question. "You cannot shield him from outside influences yourselves?" 

"We have both attempted it," Beryes said. "Something keeps breaking through. Your Great Sage claims that the closest equivalent majutsu technique is qualitatively different . . . ?" 

"It is," Geneus confirmed. "But I am not the only one who knows how to cast it." He gave Murata a cold look. 

"Actually, I'm not sure I remember all the details," Murata said easily. "I've been reborn on Earth for my last sixteen incarnations, with no maryoku at all. A lot of little things about using it have kind of . . . faded out, since they weren't being reinforced. And I don't have a pact with elemental wind, anyway. In theory, Shibuya could cast something, but I haven't been training him the way you've been working on Shouri. I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to and he went along with it . . . Details again." His shrug seemed casual enough, but he'd turned his head so that the light reflected off his glasses. I was always suspicious of Ken Murata when I couldn't see his eyes. 

Something in Geneus' expression changed subtly. "You have no pact at all." 

Murata shrugged. "Well, no, I don't. Too much trouble, and _I'm_ not interested in reviving a past that's been dead for so long that only the two of us remember it ever existed." He moved his head slightly, destroying the reflections, and met Geneus' eyes. "I'll happily cede to you the distinction of being the last of the true Soukoku." 

"I do not appreciate being flung your scraps." 

"You always manage to put the worst possible interpretation on anything I say . . . but I suppose that's your right," Murata admitted with a sigh. "I might hate me too, in your place, and I don't have anything like your pride—it's just not part of my personality in this incarnation. So let me try again: I acknowledge you as the head of the Soukoku tribe, and my superior in the arts of kalãn." The he placed his right hand over his heart, and bowed deeply. 

Geneus' frown showed that he was still suspicious, but he did nod. "The matter at hand, then. Shouri, will you lend me your power? I would like to make this as strong as possible." 

"You don't even have to ask," I said. Sliding my hand into his, I extended my focus into him, offering, and felt the drain as he drew on me, shaping wind into something that really did feel a bit like a very large, spherical dream-seal centered on Saralegui. There was a slight, splintering shock as he stabilized it and let it go. Now that we weren't attached to it anymore, it felt like the bed was encased in a sort of maryoku blind spot. 

There was only one problem: Saralegui was still thrashing and babbling. Beryes' shoulders were slumping slightly in defeat, and Alazon looked tense, her mouth pressed into a flat line rather than curved in its usual meaningless smile. 

Yuuri just looked a bit disappointed. "Didn't it work?" 

Murata shook his head. "It looks like there's something—a hook, a handle, some small fragment of houjutsu or majutsu—inside him that's acting as a binding between him and whoever it is that he's channeling. Or else he's prone to precognitive nightmares, since seals don't affect future-telling." 

Geneus was still staring at the thrashing blonde with narrowed eyes. Then he shook his head too, and said, "For the time being, I suggest that those of us with no business here leave the room, as it is far too close. If he does not quiet of his own in an hour or two, I will see whether the surgeon's stores contain any flyrush." The surgeon himself had been left behind in the scramble to depart from Small Cimaron, along with a couple of common seamen. "Unless you had rather do that yourself," he added to Murata. 

"No, herbal dosages are another area where I've forgotten a lot of important details, so I'll leave it to you," the boy said. 

Conrad and Josak slipped out the door immediately. Murata tried to steer Yuuri away from the bed, but met with no success until Wolfram snorted, slid off the table, grabbed my brother by the wrist, and began dragging him out while Murata pushed from behind. I waited until the three of them were clear of the doorway before heading there myself, especially after Wolfram started making retching sounds and doubled his speed. 

Geneus closed the door behind us, leaving the three Shinzoku alone inside, and we both stood for a moment or two, listening to the creaking of the ship as it swayed with the wind and the waves. 

I touched his hand. "Do you mind going back to the cabin for a bit? There's something I'd like to talk about. A couple of somethings, actually." 

A nod. "I expected that you would." 

"Got room for a couple more?" Josak materialized out of a shadowy corner. I'd been wondering when he was going to show himself. I could feel Conrad still standing in the narrow space between the bigger halfbreed and the wall. "We've got some questions for you too, M'Lord Sage." 

"As long as you are willing to be discreet." 

"Oh, we're the very soul of discretion . . . when sober, anyway." Josak gave us a distinctly un-reassuring grin. Geneus just shook his head. 

Our cabin still smelled faintly of sex, and it was clear that Josak had noticed that too, because he gave us a smirk before plopping himself down in the chair where we'd just been— Somehow I managed to stop myself from going red. Geneus and I sat down side-by-side on the unmade bed, while Conrad held up one of the side walls. 

Josak looked around the room, still smirking. "So is there any surface in here the two of you _haven't_ . . . tried out?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

" _Josak,_ " Conrad said sharply, while I blushed. 

"The ceiling," Geneus deadpanned, and Josak laughed. 

"That's one of the things I like about you, M'Lord Sage—you're never at a loss for an answer. So let's try this one: what are your intentions toward Shouri-sama?" 

I gaped at him. " _What?_ Josak, you're not my mother!" 

"No, but the boyo asked me to ask. I think M'Lord Sage makes him nervous, or maybe it's just the thought of his big brother bending over the edge of the bed and spreading his—" 

"Let's not get into that," I interrupted. I had to be red at least down to waist level. Okay, so I'd been _doing_ pretty much what he'd been describing not half an hour ago, but doing it wasn't the same as talking about it. 

Josak dropped his grin, and all attempts to tease me. "Well?" 

Geneus gave the spy a level look. "I am his," he said simply. "In everything. For as long as he desires it." 

"And if you had to make a choice between Shouri and the good of Shin Makoku—" 

"I wouldn't put him in that position," I interrupted. "Not ever. He's suffered enough." I took Geneus' hand in mine, weaving our fingers together. 

Geneus smiled at me, but he also shook his head slightly, and said, "A hypothetical false dichotomy? Is that truly the best question you could find for me, Lieutenant Gurrier?" 

"I didn't figure pussyfooting around would work with you—and you still haven't answered." 

Geneus' smile faded. "I would bleed myself dry to save them both," he said. "But if I truly could not find any path that led to that outcome, I would abide by Shouri's wishes . . . which would be to safeguard and support his brother." 

I squeezed his hand—he had to know that he'd read me perfectly again, but I wanted to reassure him anyway. 

"No conflict, hmm?" Josak muttered. "Or at least not while the boyo still has the throne. Well, that makes things simpler." 

"What things?" I asked, and met Conrad's eyes over Josak's head. The quiet man had to have instigated this—the questions might have been phrased in Josak's style, but they didn't strike me as being his _idea_. 

"Yuuri, being Yuuri, insists on trusting everyone around him," Conrad said, smile never wavering, although his eyes looked tired. "Because he won't distinguish, it's part of my job to know who can be pushed how far, and by what methods." 

_And how to deal with them if they go over the edge,_ I thought. _I really don't think I want to see your list of contingency plans._

"Okay," I said. "So now that that's settled, we have to figure out how to tell Saralegui that his twin is still alive." 

Conrad froze, and Josak's eyes almost popped out of their sockets—I guess they hadn't figured it out, but who else could possibly have been contacting Saralegui from inside his own head? 

"I am not certain that he is, although I would prefer it," Geneus said. "It is also possible that the connection between the twins was redirected to someone else after Yelshi died." 

"I have a bad feeling I know what that means, but spell it out for me," Josak said. 

"It means that, since no more than a few days after he was born, there has been someone else capable of listening with Saralegui's ears, seeing with his eyes . . . influencing his thoughts," Geneus said. "Until we find out who that person is, we must treat the king of Small Cimaron as an enemy agent." 

"I was afraid that was what you meant," Josak said. "Any chance that you're wrong?" 

Geneus shrugged. "He was not reaching out intentionally using houjutsu or majutsu, and nothing should have been able to get in through the wind-wall. It is possible that he does indeed have prophetic tendencies, or a vivid imagination that is combining with extensive subconscious memories of his infancy under the influence of the fever. I will be greatly relieved if either of those turns out to be the case . . . and so, no doubt, will you." 

"Hope for the best, plan for the worst," Josak agreed with a grimace. 

"This will fall mostly on your shoulders, I fear, Lord Weller," Geneus added to the quieter man. 

"Unfortunately, I agree with you," Conrad admitted, adding, "I wish we had been able to bring more guards, but Lady Anissina's latest boat design takes Gwendal, Günter, _and_ Hube to charge it. She even roped in Dakaskos, although he's of little more use than I am in that respect." 

"Did they all survive?" I asked. 

"Of course, although they may not want to at first. She's been bothering Gwendal long enough that he's almost used to it—he bounces back in an hour or two if she doesn't manage to catch him again." 

I shuddered, remembering how, in my ignorance, I'd nearly volunteered for one of Anissina's experiments within an hour of my first arrival in Shin Makoku. Since then, I'd done my damndest to avoid her. The woman was dangerous. 

"If you have no further questions," Geneus said suddenly, "we would appreciate some time alone." His thumb moved, stroking the back of my hand and drawing Josak's gaze. 

The spy shook his head. "It's been barely half an hour—you sure you don't have any whanler ancestry, M'Lord Sage? Well, okay, maybe not whanler, but you two get along so well that there's got to be _something_ not quite right about _one_ of you." 

"We are still at the beginning of our relationship, Lieutenant Gurrier. Give the dewy blush a bit of time to wear off the flower. I have no doubt that, a year from now, we will be arguing about which one of us takes up more than his fair share of the bed and whether to leave the window open at night, just like any other couple." 

Conrad's eyes twinkled, and his smile changed subtly into something real. 

Josak sighed. "It's unfair, you having all that experience to draw on. And not being interested in getting pulled into any of my jokes." 

"Regardless, we should get going," Conrad said. "If nothing else, I'd like to make sure Wolfram hasn't fallen overboard. He was looking rather green." 

"Give me a break, Captain—by now he must be an expert at leaning over ships' railings. He even automatically goes to the downwind side. If he just had the brains to _stay home_ . . ." But Josak was getting up out of his chair. "See you two later, Shouri-sama, M'Lord Sage." 

" _Do_ you prefer to sleep with a window open?" I asked Geneus as the door closed behind them, leaving us alone again. 

"I am largely indifferent, provided that the weather is fine. A proper bed, no matter the condition of the windows, is always better than a tent. But that is not what you felt you could not ask me in front of them." 

"Since it's about what Murata said to you, I thought it might be private, that's all." I paused deliberately, but he didn't say anything, so I continued, "kalãn—that's the art of majutsu, isn't it? What you've been teaching me, not what's normally practiced these days." And with a weird nasal vowel mixed into its name for no obvious reason. 

Geneus nodded. 

"I'd noticed before that you use the word 'Soukoku' differently than everyone else from Shin Makoku," I said. "It used to mean more than just having black hair and black eyes, didn't it?" 

Another nod. "In the most ancient days, before the first Originator and the founding of Shin Makoku, the Mazoku were not a single, cohesive people. We were divided into several tribes and small nation-states. All were culturally distinct; some also had unique physical traits. The Soukoku, according to the old stereotypes, were not merely black-haired and black-eyed, but highly intelligent and with maryoku of more than the usual potency." Geneus smiled crookedly. "I cannot say they were entirely wrong—I certainly cleave well enough to that description, as did the only other Soukoku I knew in those days." 

"I remember," I said slowly. "The dream Shin'ou forced me to share, from just before you met him . . . because you were Soukoku, they—" 

"That was long ago—but no, we were not well-liked. Other Mazoku treated us as humans often treated them, and for much the same reason: because they feared our power. And we had little choice but to live by their sufferance, for we had no country of our own in which to take refuge. Instead, we wandered, alone or in small groups, always hoping to find a place where our presence would be tolerated. And as we wandered and as we died, we lost much of what had once made us a people: language, history, many of our customs, and knowledge of the fine points of kalãn. And now, with the few written records destroyed by war and time, all that is left is the tattered and faded fabric of my earliest memories." 

"You'll have to write it down," I said. "Everything you remember. Murata won't, and it might end up being important—to our future grandchildren, if not to anyone else. It doesn't have to end with you." 

The last few words visibly cracked his composure, and for an instant, I saw the core of Geneus' self exposed: the shock as he dared to admit to himself that he _wanted_ this, wanted not just me, or our children, but to leave a legacy of a deeply personal type that he'd denied himself for tens of centuries, tens of lives. Desire and fear and an aching emptiness that he hadn't even noticed until a chance to fill it came along. 

"You always know the right thing to say," he said softly. "Thank you, Shouri." 

"Not really. Saying the right things and _knowing_ that they're the right things aren't . . . the same thing." I grimaced at the repetition, because it sounded stupid. 

"Nevertheless . . ." His hand cupped the side of my face, and I was treated to a warm kiss. 

I just put my arms around him and held him, savouring the feeling of being together.


	31. Interlude:  In the Courts of Darkness

"It doesn't seem to be interested," the young man lies to the one whose pale golden hair has long since faded to silver-gilt. 

A flash of anger crosses the older man's face. "The Mazoku must have turned it against us." 

The younger man laughs uneasily as he returns the sword to its scabbard. "Mazoku are a myth." He moves to hang the sword from his belt, but the older one snatches it from him. 

"I'll return this to the treasure house. Get back to your lessons, Yelshi." 

"Of course, Uncle Calmeth." Yelshi sighs, and puts on a show of reluctance. Calmeth still thinks of him as a child, and he finds it convenient to be seen that way, as someone whose greatest concern is getting out of boring etiquette lessons. 

As he climbs the stairs back to the ground floor, he ponders the mystery of the sword. It looks like a cheap trinket made of brass and inferior steel, but on the inside . . . he still can't make sense out of that. Two _different_ kinds of power, but the sword seemed to see them as the same. And one of them had been warm, familiar, and _welcoming_ —his and yet not-his. 

_Saralegui._ They've told him over and over again that his twin is dead, but he's always known it isn't true, and now he finally has proof. Liars and the sons and daughters of liars, all of them. He barely even believes them when they say the sky is blue, for all that he can see it, burning violently cerulean, above the courtyard whose packed-earth floor once bloomed with lush, green vegetation. He's been able to put a stop to that nonsense, at least—he has little real power, but small gestures like diverting the palace gardeners to growing vegetables rather than flowers are within his compass. 

He frowns, rubbing the symbol in the middle of his forehead. _King and high priest, and all I'm good for is straddling the throne and doing my best doll imitation while Calmeth runs everything. Did I do the right thing by refusing to use the sword?_ Is it right to make the rest of the country suffer for the sake of his passive war with Calmeth? But if Calmeth were able to take the credit for the revival of the land . . . 

There is a slave working in the courtyard, sweeping dust from the stones around the dry fountain. The man's ribs show through his bronzed skin. He keeps his eyes on the ground as Yelshi passes. If Calmeth had been there, that would have earned him a whipping for not prostrating himself before the king as is proper for one of his lowly station. Yelshi has always thought that ritual silly and pointless, a waste of time that could be put to better use sweeping floors or laundering bedding, but Calmeth thinks it's important, and it will be another two years before he can overrule the man. 

Perversely, he decides to take the long way through the building—after all, it's what the petulant child he's pretending to be would do. Thus, instead of turning left into the pillared arcade that leads to the royal wing, he ducks down one of the servants' passageways. 

A maid who's busy polishing a doorknob glances up, then, realizing who he is, yelps and bows, fingers touching the center of her forehead. Fortunately, she is a serf and not a slave, because there really isn't enough room for her to prostrate herself in the narrow corridor and still let him slip past. Left, then right, then left again, and he is standing in one of the small archways at the back of the grand entrance hall, with its fittings of pink granite and white marble and gold. Technically he isn't supposed to be here at all, at least without a guard, but Calmeth can be entertaining when he's having a fit, and it's been years since his punishments genuinely bothered Yelshi. 

"Your Majesty!" 

He freezes. Despite his elaborate gold-embroidered jacket and the trinkets braided into his hair, he's used to being below people's notice. He has no idea what to do as a peasant woman carrying an infant marches right up the center of the hall and plants herself in front of him. She is nothing exceptional to look at, with her broad, sun-browned face and minimal clothing. Her hair, cut-off and braided hanks of which seem to have provided the ties for her rough sandals, is wavy and coarse and several shades darker than her skin. She has a little more padding across her ribs than the courtyard slave, but only a little, and he doubts her family ever possessed any houryoku even when the land was still green. A fisherman's wife, perhaps, or one of the labourers who performs the vital work of carrying goods from place to place on their backs, now that the horses and the donkeys are all gone. 

She stares into his face directly, without pretending respect she doesn't feel. He rather likes that, actually. 

"What can I do for you?" he asks, and tries to smile. The seldom-used expression feels odd, as though the corners of his mouth are being stretched out of shape. 

"Is it true that the Holy Sword has returned?" She's forthright, too. He really likes that. 

"A weapon purporting to be the Holy Sword was presented to me earlier today," he admits. 

"Then the land—" 

He holds up a hand. "Unfortunately, the sword was drained of power while it was in the outside world, and most of the information on how to use it has been lost. It may be some time before the land is restored, I'm afraid." _Like two years._

He sees the life drain from her face, and wishes that he could take back the words, but it's already too late. 

"Oh," the woman says. "I had hoped it would be in time to . . . I've gotten so little these past few weeks that my milk is drying up, and my daughter . . ." She jiggles the thin-faced infant as though to emphasize her words, but it—she—appears not to have the energy to raise her head, or the curiosity to want to. 

He could send some servants to fetch the mother a meal, but that wouldn't address the real problem. There are thousands more like her, quiet, hard-working people who just can't work hard enough to support themselves and their families in this damaged land, and their choices are bleak: let their children die, or sell themselves and those children into slavery in return for meager but steady food. 

"I'm sorry," he says, knowing just how inadequate it is, and hating himself for it. _Sorry because it's too dangerous for me to given in on the politics. Sorry because I can't let him have the upper hand. Sorry because it's all my fault. If I were stronger, if I had more supporters . . . if . . . I want to be a good king, you know. I want it so badly . . ._

"It's all right," the woman says, quite unexpectedly. "By the Lord Sun's holy radiance, you look so much like my eldest, with that expression on your face . . . You don't need to feel so guilty, Your Majesty. There's still a chance, isn't there? You may find a way in time, and even if you don't, you'll have tried." 

" _Hey!_ Hey, you there! What are you doing to His Majesty?" 

He watches the woman's back and sun-browned shoulders as the guards herd her away, her last words still ringing in his ears. 

_You'll have tried._

_But will I?_


	32. Chapter 25

It took three weeks to get to Seisakoku from Small Cimaron, and we spent almost all of it sailing due south, propelled by a powerful current and a houjutsu-based engine. Which was nice for a while, because it meant we needed fewer layers of clothing, but for the last few days of travel I had to leave my shirt off—never mind my jacket—whenever I left our cabin, because the alternative was being steamed like a basket of dumplings. Geneus' majutsu kept the temperature on the inside low enough to be comfortable, but he couldn't handle the whole ship, and I didn't know how to duplicate what he was doing. Delicate fire majutsu would likely be beyond me for months more, if not years. 

For most of the trip, we . . . well, I wouldn't call it _lazing around_ , exactly, not when it involved a couple of hours of daily sword practice for me and Yuuri both, but we didn't have anything in particular we needed to do. Beryes and Alazon were the exception. They both spent long hours in the captain's cabin, watching over Saralegui and pouring healing into him in the hope that it would counteract the fever. Murata and Geneus both checked the young king occasionally, at Yuuri's insistence, but there was nothing they could do, either. At least Sara was quiet now . . . most of the time. 

In the meanwhile, I got myself roped into sword practice as an opponent for Yuuri, practiced my majutsu, teased my brother, worked my way haltingly through all six of the books to be found on the ship (try to get Yuuri to open one of those, though, although he needed the practice even more than I did) . . . and made love with Geneus, of course. The others all had their pastimes, too: Josak diced and played hoket with the sailors, Yuuri learned knots from the cabin boy, Conrad mended a lot of clothing with neat, tiny stitches and slipped away periodically with Josak, and Murata, to everyone's surprise, took up fishing. So did Wolfram, once he recovered from his seasickness a bit, midway through the second week. Geneus inventoried the stores of the ship's missing surgeon and then took up his duties, which seemed to consist largely of handing out hangover remedies, salves for bruises and rope burn, and sharp-tongued criticism of the sailors' more idiotic exploits. 

It's mostly little things that I remember about that trip. Like nearly braining myself on a yardarm the first time I tried a majutsu-assisted jump. Beating Wolfram at sword practice one afternoon, which I think surprised me even more than him. Cuddling Geneus for hours in the middle of the night when a memory-nightmare of being burned alive woke him whimpering in pain, until my touch finally drew him back to the present. Wolfram and Yuuri wrestling on the deck like a pair of idiots until Murata dumped a bucket of seawater over them to get them to behave, and Wolfram's sputtering glare afterwards. Watching Josak demonstrate how to effectively wield a mop against swords, which would have been hilarious if he hadn't been so good at it. 

It was late in the second week that Saralegui finally emerged from the cabin, leaning on Beryes, while an anxious Alazon hovered behind them. 

"Sara!" Yuuri shot to his feet from where he'd been practicing those damned knots, and just about bowled the other boy over. Thankfully, he stopped himself in time, though. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" 

Saralegui smiled. "Hungry, mostly. And weak. Beryes says . . . that we're twelve days out of Small Cimaron on the way to Seisakoku . . ." 

"Don't be mad at Beryes," Yuuri said. "He just wanted to keep you safe." 

"His _job_ is to obey me," Saralegui snapped, with an angry glance at the older man. Beryes bore it stoically. "Now it's going to take me months to get rid of Lanzhil. This is going to seriously affect my plans." 

"No, it won't," Yuuri said. "We'll help you." 

"Hey!" The syllable burst out of my mouth without my willing it. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time he tried to get you to help him?!" 

Yuuri shook his head. "Nope. It was a pretty big deal, after all." 

"Then—" 

My brother cut me off. "I still want to help him, but it'll be on my terms this time. So don't worry." 

"Easy for you to say," I muttered . . . but I'd promised I was going to support his decisions from now on, so I didn't interrupt again. I clenched my hands around my swordbelt and ground my teeth instead. _At least he recognizes there's a danger,_ I told myself. _That's better than him just charging ahead obliviously the way he so often does._

"I'd be pleased to accept whatever help you're able to send, Yuuri," Saralegui said. "You might want to talk to Lord von Voltaire first, though—he'll get grumpy if you promise too much without consulting him. And I need to figure out exactly what to do, so I'm not going to need anything . . . for a while." He turned slowly to gaze toward the front of the ship, and a bit to the left—off the port bow, I mean—keeping one hand on Beryes' elbow. I looked in that direction myself, but there didn't seem to be anything there but water. "It's funny—I never wanted to go on this trip, but now that I'm here, I can't help but want to finish it. It's as though something is pulling me forward . . ." 

_Oh, hell. "We must treat the king of Small Cimaron as an enemy agent." So he really is . . ._

"That he feels such a pull is actually a hopeful sign," Geneus said softly from behind me—I'd been on deck, standing outside the cramped cubbyhole that was the infirmary, to wait for him, so I'd been completely unsurprised to feel him emerge. 

"It is?" I said. 

"It makes it a bit more likely that the one influencing his thoughts is Yelshi. If it were another, he might still feel drawn, but I would expect him to also be . . . subtly repelled, and there was no evidence of that in his voice or his expression. There is still a problem, however." 

"We don't know what kind of person Yelshi is," I completed for him. "The xenophobe faction's had seventeen years to brainwash him. He could be a raving nutcase." And if his twin was anything to go by, he would be a _dangerous_ raving nutcase. 

"If there is one thing that terrifies me about Saralegui, it is that he reminds me of what I might have been like at that age, had I also been in his position," Geneus said, and I could hear the wry smile even if I couldn't see it. 

I took a cautious half-step backwards, so that my bare shoulder touched his cloth-covered one—unlike me, Geneus had kept his long tunic of dark linen despite the heat. Never having lived in a world with air conditioners, he was used to enduring climatic conditions that he couldn't change. We stood there together, watching Yuuri drag Saralegui (and Beryes) all over the deck, introducing the sailors and pointing out details of the ship with enthusiasm. Saralegui smiled and even laughed a bit, while Beryes merely looked long-suffering. Alazon still trailed in their wake. It didn't take a genius to tell that she was uncomfortable, and yet she wanted to connect to Saralegui so very badly that she was willing to trail along behind him and clutch at scraps. 

He never once looked back at her. Even if I hadn't known the state of their relationship, that would have told me . . . everything. Really, I wasn't sure which of them I pitied more: the mother who had convinced herself that abandoning her son was the right thing to do, or the son who had convinced himself that he had no mother. 

Saralegui's condition improved steadily after that, despite Yuuri's treatment of him—or maybe because of it, for all I knew. It was obvious that he was tired of the cabin, because he spent as much time on deck as he could, soaking up the sun and challenging random people to games of zhiba, which turned out to be more like chess or shougi than go. Conrad turned out to be quite a skilled player, and so did Murata, but Wolfram flew off the handle too easily and Josak kept trying to cheat. The young king never offered Alazon a game, although she was quite often hovering nearby, and Geneus begged off on grounds of being busy in the cubbyhole of an infirmary. I found myself joining him there more and more often, and learned a thing or two about compounding traditional Cimaronese hangover cures—none of which actually _worked_ , but as Geneus pointed out, the leaves and roots and berries involved were harmless and had no other medicinal uses, so why not give them to the sailors to shut them up? 

When he wasn't moving carved wooden figures around a gameboard, Saralegui occupied his time either with the stretching exercises mercilessly prescribed by Beryes, or with just staring out over the ocean. In some ways it might be just as well that he did, though, because he spotted the first signs of trouble before anyone else. 

Not that he exactly announced it, of course, but a quiet, "That's odd," spoken just as I was passing behind him, had me extending my focus as far as it would go, and what I found . . . 

"Shin'ou's dimpled ass," I swore. Everyone who was on deck at that point turned to look at me, and I blinked as I realized what I'd just said—maybe I'd been speaking this language for so long that I really was starting to think in it. Then I shook my head. _Focus, Shouri._ "There's something up ahead," I said to the staring faces. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's really big, alive, has lots of tentacles . . . and seems to be confined to a narrow band of ocean. By houjutsu." I knew what houjutsu felt like now, beyond nausea- and headache-inducing, because I'd spent an hour or so leaning against the outside of the captain's cabin and "watching" while Beryes and Alazon had been pouring healing into Saralegui. 

"An octopus?" Yuuri smiled. "Maybe we can make takoyaki!" 

I rolled my eyes. "I mean cottage-sized big, not large-dog big, idiot. Besides, do you even know _how_ to make takoyaki?" 

"Um, well . . ." 

"I do," Murata said. "But I don't think I'd try it with a giant squid. It would come out way too rubbery even if you minced it up fine, and besides, we don't have a takoyaki pan or any pickled ginger . . . what?" 

"If you have time to worry about pickled ginger, friend-of-my-brother, you could try diverting that overstuffed brain of yours to come up with an idea of how to get _past_ this thing." 

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about it, Shibuya's-big-brother. Giant squid don't go after ships unless they're starving to death—too much effort and not enough meat. They prefer whales, or big sharks—" At least Murata had the grace to stop talking when a questing tentacle popped up over the edge of the railing. 

"You were saying?" I asked grimly. 

Murata shrugged. "I guess the houjutsu barriers must have been keeping it from getting at food. Beryes-san, you weren't expecting this, were you?" 

"When we left, there were no such protections in place," Saralegui's uncle said grimly, drawing his swords. "Only the veil of illusion that concealed the land itself, and pro forma naval pickets outside the largest ports." 

More tentacles slithered over the railing, and the captain yelled at the sailors to go for the fire-axes as the ship began to tilt. Beryes wrapped his arms around Saralegui and dragged him back to the door leading down to the cabins. I grabbed for water with my maryoku, then stopped as I felt Geneus' hand descend gently on my arm. 

"It has damaged the side of the ship—we cannot afford to be drawn any deeper into the water. Use air instead, and slice it loose." He was already working on that: I could feel his power scything out towards the creature, and I added my own to it. There was a whistling cry that nearly shattered my eardrums, and then the boat righted itself, bobbing awkwardly, as the squid fell away. 

One of the sailors picked up a stray tentacle-tip that was writhing on the deck. A moment later he swore and whacked the thing several times against the railing. There was a large circular red mark on his hand when the squid-fragment dropped back to the deck, and he cradled it against his chest in a way that suggested it probably hurt like hell. 

Then the ship lurched again, bowing forward and down, and I was horrified to see another set of tentacles reaching over the rail. And then a second, from the same side and toward the stern. Gritting my teeth, I extended my focus and found no less than eight of the creatures, whose bodies, shorn of their tentacles, would have ranged from compact-car-sized to . . . _oh, hell, I think that one's bigger than this entire damned boat!_

Yuuri had Morgif out and was hacking at the tentacles near the stern, alongside several sailors, but he wasn't aware of the giant rising up from below. By the time it made himself known to him and he snapped over into Maoh Mode, the ship was going to be kindling and we were going to be trying to swim for it, at least a day's sail away from the nearest land. I used water majutsu and grabbed for the mega-squid myself, but when I squeezed it, all I succeeded in doing was making it squirt out of my mental grip. I needed to get it up to the surface where I could attack it with wind, but it was too damned big and too damned strong, and while water might be my bonded element, the squid had spent its entire life in the ocean. 

There were four of the smaller ones clinging to the boat now, and everyone who could wield a weapon was hacking away, trying to get them off—even Murata and Saralegui had picked up axes and waded in, and Alazon was sending short blasts of houjutsu at one. Geneus was standing beside me, tense with effort, and I could feel him using wind majutsu to block the hole the first squid had made in the hull. If someone was going to do something about the big one, it was going to have to be me, but I didn't have the strength . . . 

I swallowed. There was a way, a glaringly obvious way. A too-glaringly-obvious way. _I know I was wondering if I could do it on purpose, but you didn't have to set something like_ this _up, you blonde idiot!_

If Shin'ou was listening, he didn't choose to answer that particular unprayer. Well, that was okay, because I didn't have the time right now to punch him out. 

I closed my eyes and forced my awareness inward, searching the lower reaches of my own mind for a metaphorical trapdoor. It was like stumbling around in the dark. _If I don't do this, Yuuri might die,_ I reminded myself. _Geneus, too._ But at the same time, I couldn't afford to panic. The damned boat was fragile and already damaged, and if I mistakenly overstressed the hull, I would end up creating the very scenario I was trying to avoid. I had to keep control. 

There—was that it? More of a difference in internal texture than anything else . . . no handle or hinges . . . I took a deep breath and tried to reach through it, as I'd done with the all-encompassing ocean, and felt the bottom drop out from under me and the motes of light—the spirits—flood in. 

I kept my eyes closed, knowing that maryoku-senses would serve me better for the first steps of this than sight, and grabbed the giant squid—grabbed _all_ the squids, although I couldn't actually yank the ones gripping the hull away from it without risking damage to the fragile wooden shell. When I opened my eyes, several of the creatures were raised on foaming mounds of ocean, with water dragons wrapped around their tentacles and keeping them from flailing. 

_"I am not going to let myself be terrorized by overgrown takoyaki."_ The odd resonance in my voice was clear even when speaking in a near-inaudible growl. 

One at a time, I threw the free squid as far as I could back the way we had come. I could have shredded them into squid-meal, but I had a feeling that the unnecessary killing would bother my soft touch of a brother, even if the creatures had just been trying to shred _us_. 

That left the five that were attached to the ship. I detached the four that were climbing the sides first, one at a time, with blades of razor-edged wind, and threw them too. That left a bunch of squid fragments on the deck and the smallest monster, maybe horse-sized, clinging to the rudder. If I tore it loose, we would certainly be left unable to steer, and we might end up with a hole in the underside of the damned boat. 

"Feed it." 

I blinked at Geneus, uncomprehending. 

"They are cannibals." 

_Oh._ I used wind to sweep the severed tentacles to a gap in the railing near the stern, then dumped them over the side and used a current of water to push them toward the remaining squid, which began grabbing them and shoving them into its beak. As it deployed more and more appendages for that purpose, it let go of the rudder. I let it drift a bit further back, past the stern, before sending it to join the others. 

Everyone was staring at me, I realized as I belatedly returned my attention to what was going on on deck. The sailors, Wolfram, Yuuri, and even Conrad looked shocked. The Shinzoku trio were more difficult to read, but then none of those three ever showed an uncontrolled expression if they could help it. Murata just looked grim, Josak wore a lopsided smile, and Geneus . . . I read worry, there, and love. 

"Shou . . . ri?" Yuuri said hesitantly. 

_"Hey,"_ I replied. _"Do I really look that different?"_

My brother shook his head. "I guess not. It's your eyes, mostly. They look kind of like Bob's did when we were fighting, but blue instead of gold." 

My right hand rose involuntarily to my face, but I stopped the motion before actually touching either eye. _We're done now,_ I told myself. _Time to shut it down._

Except that once again, I didn't seem to be able to do so—no number of "closing off" or "pulling back" visualizations seemed to be able to break the link between me and the spirits. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. So I switched to Geneus' strategy of immersing myself in the physical world. But the obvious memories to draw on there were sexual, and concentrating on _that_ kind of stuff with more than twenty people watching me was just too much for the part of me that was still uncertain of myself. Every time I nearly had it closed down, I would notice Yuuri or someone watching me, flush beet red, and feel my maryoku coil inside me as though reacting to a threat. 

I gave Geneus a pleading look, and he immediately put his arms around me. I bowed my head to breathe in his scent as his hands stroked my back, closed my eyes, and then put both hands on his ass and ground our lower bodies together. 

That finally did it. The link snapped shut, and I leaned harder into my lover as the sudden loss of power weakened my knees. It wasn't as bad as the last couple of times, though, because I didn't feel like I was going to faint. Instead, after a few moments, I was able to raise my head and look around. 

The first thing I saw was Yuuri, staring at the two of us wide-eyed and with a flush on his face that had to rival mine. I immediately looked down again. 

"Sorry," I muttered. 

"Next time, get a room," Josak said with a crooked grin. 

"You didn't have to watch," I pointed out. 

" _Well, get back to work, you lubbers!_ " Captain Milos' shout carried from one end of the ship to the other, and the sailors slowly unfroze and began re-coiling rope, gathering up stray axes, and tossing sections of railing that had been splintered beyond repair overboard, while others inspected the ship. There was a cry of surprise when someone spotted the hole the first squid had left. 

"I believe I should speak to the captain, beloved," Geneus murmured. 

"Yeah, it would suck if we sank anyway after all that," I said, letting him go. He gave me a quick peck on the cheek before moving away. 

"You can't make it back to normal by yourself, can you, Shibuya's-big-brother?" Murata was giving me a level stare over his glasses, which was unusual. He looked a little the worse for wear, with a nasty bruise rising on one side of his face. 

"I'm not sure, friend-of-my-brother," I admitted, with a grimace. "The first time, I fainted and was back to normal when I woke up. The second time, I didn't lose consciousness until Geneus had already pulled me out of it—I guess I would have fainted eventually if he hadn't. Probably." 

"You're not sure?" 

"How could I be? This thing didn't exactly come with a manual, you know." 

Murata snorted. "No, I guess it wouldn't. Your Maoh Mode seems to be more like Shin'ou's than Yuuri's, but I can't remember him ever having troubles with getting stuck like that." 

"Geneus seems to think much the same," I said. "Maybe it's because I came into my maryoku late, relatively speaking. Maybe it'll fix itself, given time, or I'll figure out some better way of controlling it." 

"I wish Jose were here. He might have some idea." 

I blinked. "Jose? You mean Bob's friend, Jose? I don't see how he could help—he doesn't even have any maryoku of his own." 

"No, but he's the only Mazoku I know who has any training in psychiatry." 

"You think this is all in my head?" I gave Murata a nasty look. 

"I don't know if it's _all_ in your head, but it would be nice to have it eliminated as a contributing factor. After all, you want power very badly, don't you, Shibuya's-big-brother? Maryoku reacts to your subconscious. There has to be a part of you that doesn't want to let go of the greatest power you've ever had access to." 

"I don't want it _that_ badly," I said, frowning. _Do I?_

It took most of a day to patch up the hole in the side of the ship, a process that seemed to involve messing around with not just boards, but slings and mallets and lengths of fibrous stuff that stank of pine trees and even Shin'ou probably didn't know what else. We were probably lucky that only one of the sailors fell overboard during the process and had to be fished out of the ocean. Beryes and Alazon and Geneus and I had to divide the night up into watches, with each of us taking it in turn to seal the hole with our power and make sure that nothing flooded. 

We got underway again late the next day, with a gap as wide as my hand still showing at the topmost edge of the hole, where we'd run out of wood. Of course, we ran into trouble again almost immediately. 

"Any fool could see that marauding giant squid would only be the first line of defense," I muttered, staring at the evenly-spaced row of ships in front of us. "How the hell does a country with almost no healthy vegetation make that many damned boats?" 

"The hulls are made of metal," Beryes said. Everyone was up on deck again, watching the approaching line—even the sailors were loitering within earshot. 

I felt for the nearest Seisakokan ship and discovered that he was right: two layers, with an air gap in between. I kept underestimating the technology level of this world, forgetting that the Cimaronese used guns in warfare, and that printing presses with movable type seemed to be fairly widespread. 

"Must make voyage repairs a pain," Josak said. "But I suppose they never go very far from land, do they?" 

Beryes shook his head. "The few long-distance merchantmen we had remaining when I left were built of imported timber." 

"Of more importance than their construction is the fact that we need to get past them," Geneus said. "However, unlike the squid, they may be willing to permit access by a ship carrying their queen . . . if there is some way we can communicate Alazon-dono's presence to them." 

"I believe I remember the signalling codes well enough to request a meeting," Beryes said. "With your permission, Your Majesty?" 

"Go ahead," Saralegui said. He was sitting on a coil of rope with his formerly-injured leg stretched out in front of him. I think it still pained him despite the amount of healing houjutsu that he had been flooded with over the past few weeks. 

Beryes went to the front of the ship and climbed up on the bowsprit, wrapping his arm around one of the ropes stretching down from the rigging to hold himself steady. He stopped there for a moment, with his head slightly bowed, and the air around him seemed to ripple. When he raised his head again, his hair colour had returned to its natural blonde, and I expected that if I'd been able to see them, his eyes would have been golden. He held his hands at waist height, palms up, and a sudden jet of coloured light leapt from one to the other. Red-blue-green-blue-green, a pause, and a repeat. He'd been through four cycles when an answering light flared at the front of the nearest ship—blue-white-blue, pause, repeat. Beryes sent up one final jet of white light, and clambered down. 

"They will come to us," he said. "I would suggest lowering the sails, to make it clear with have no intention of running. And . . . Your Majesty? I think it would be best if I stayed like this for the time being." The big Shinzoku touched his blonde hair, which looked weirdly wrong on him. The eyes, too. 

Saralegui blinked at him several times, slowly. "Just don't make a habit of it." 

Beryes bowed. "Yes, Sire." 

"There are a couple of things we need to get straight before they get close enough for a good look at us," I said. "Like, do we want to make a formal embassy out of this—Shin Makoku and Small Cimaron making advances to Seisakoku? Or are we not going to mention that part? And sooner or later, someone's going to ask why King Saralegui looks like a Shinzoku, unless he borrows some of Yuuri's hair dye within the next five minutes." 

"And if I don't?" Saralegui said, eyebrows raised, an amused smile curling his mouth. 

I shrugged. "Three choices that I can see: claim it's a coincidence—which I doubt they'll buy—tell the truth, or claim that you're Beryes' son. Or the son of one of the other Shinzoku who left the country with them, I guess." That third choice wouldn't work if Yelshi really was alive . . . but it might be accepted temporarily as a polite fiction. I hoped. 

"For security reasons, I would suggest that we not bring Shin Makoku into this," Geneus said. "Or, at very least, Yuuri-sama should conceal his identity and allow attention to focus on Shouri and myself." 

"Wouldn't that be . . . kind of risky for you?" Yuuri said. 

"Not nearly as much as it would be for you, Shibuya," Murata said. "In fact, I think using your brother as a distraction is a pretty good idea, if we're going to be hunting for Originators and magic swords on the side. C'mon, let's go get the dye before they get the drop on us." He grabbed a reluctant Yuuri by the shoulders and steered him firmly toward the cabins. 

"As for me, I won't hide," Saralegui said. "But I don't think I need to give anything away, either. If anyone asks about my appearance, kindly steer them toward me so that I can decide how to handle it." 

_So long as Yuuri doesn't say anything stupid,_ I thought . . . but didn't say aloud. 

The Seisakokan ship had drawn visibly nearer while we'd been talking. I could make out individual people on deck now . . . and surprisingly few of them were blonde. It looked more like the mixture you would get in Cimaron: a lot of different shades of brown, a bit of blonde, and one or two each in orange and light to medium green. Maybe only the officers were Shinzoku, and the rest of the crew were ordinary humans? 

Geneus touched my arm. "You should put a shirt on," he said. "It would hardly be seemly for an official representative of Shin Makoku to meet with a foreign dignitary in such a state of undress, even if said foreign dignitary is a mere naval ship captain." 

"And it'll impress on them that we're a wealthy bunch, given what Beryes said about the cloth shortage in Seisakoku?" I suggested. 

My lover smiled. "Precisely. Now, off with you." He slapped me on the ass, just hard enough to make me feel it. I smiled, shook my head, and headed back to our cabin. 

By the time I'd gotten my shirt on, combed my hair out and retied it, and—just in case—strapped on my swordbelt, the other ship was pulling up alongside us. I saw the prow go by outside the porthole, and heard a lot of shouting as the sailors on either vessel threw ropes back and forth to secure us together. 

When I climbed back up on deck, everyone was sort of loitering around again, including a Yuuri and a Murata with freshly-dyed reddish-brown hair, and brown and blue eyes respectively—Murata had to have brought coloured contacts with him from Earth. Beryes and the captain stood at the foot of the plank that was being lashed into place between the two ships' railings. Behind them stood Alazon, Saralegui, and Geneus, with Conrad and Josak fanned out to either side. I took my place beside my lover, and waited. 

There was a long pause when the lashing was completed. Then a brown-haired sailor jumped up and walked nimbly across, showing no sign of nervousness except the sweat trickling down his bare chest . . . and that could just have been from the heat. He stared at Beryes for a long moment. The big Shinzoku said nothing. Finally the stranger turned back toward his ship and made a beckoning gesture. 

The man who came across next . . . startled me, because he couldn't be all that much older than Yuuri. He was clearly Shinzoku, with golden eyes and golden hair, but that hair was cropped down to something like an Earth military cut. Unlike most of the others on his ship, he was fully clothed, with a vest over his shirt, even. Ornate gold earrings glinted in each ear, and there was more goldwork on the hilt of the shortsword that rode at his hip. 

His gaze traveled slowly over our party. He stared openly at me, Geneus, Beryes . . . then he hit Alazon and Saralegui, and froze. His mouth worked, but for the first several seconds, no sound came out. 

"You are—" he managed at last. "But you cannot possibly be— _Alazon Aurea_?" 

"You will address Her Majesty with proper respect," Beryes rumbled. 

The young man froze again. Then he bowed deeply. "My apologies, Your Majesty, but you have long been believed dead, and your son elected in your place. I am Ferrath Eshes, captain of the _Vigilant_ , and it is my honour to be the first to welcome you home." 

Alazon's face was bloodless. "My . . . son," she said slowly. 

"Explain yourself," Beryes amplified, although he looked a little shocky too. "My sister left no living child behind when we departed." 

Ferrath blinked. "We were told that King Yelshi's health was frail when he was first born, and that you had fostered him with Lord Calmeth to ensure that he would be well-fed and taken care of." 

"Not murdered," Alazon whispered. "Alive and taken. Why did I not see . . . ?" 

Saralegui had reacted the least of any member of the Shinzoku trio, but I had no doubt that behind his smooth, nonchalant mask, his mind was racing a mile a minute. The question was, along what path? Had we done the wrong thing by not telling him, or Alazon for that matter, about our suspicions? I glanced at Geneus, who shrugged slightly. 

"It should be easy enough for us to meet him, under the circumstances," Saralegui said, with a charming, hollow smile. 

"I'm certain that will be the case, Lord . . . er . . ." Ferrath shot a pleading look at Beryes. 

"Announce us, please, Beryes," Saralegui said. 

"Yes, Your Majesty. This is King Saralegui of Small Cimaron," Beryes said with a smooth gesture in his master's direction. "Whom I am sworn to serve. These gentlemen are Lord Shouri Shibuya, brother of the ruler of Shin Makoku—" I took my cue and nodded politely. "—and Lord Geneus, advisor to the throne of that country." Geneus nodded as well, careful and precise. 

Ferrath had gone beyond pale and into greenish. "Your Majesty . . . my lords . . . what brings you to our waters?" 

"Let's just say that there are . . . certain ongoing negotiations between Seisakoku and Small Cimaron," came Saralegui's smooth reply. "Surely, under the circumstances, you can let us pass . . . ?" 

"Um," Ferrath said intelligently. Really, I felt sorry for the poor bastard: he couldn't have been trained for this. "I think that, under the circumstances, it would be wise for the _Vigilant_ to escort you in. Just so that nothing . . . unfortunate . . . happens." 

"That would be quite acceptable," Saralegui said, with another smile. 

A lot of signalling went on while they separated the boats again. We received not one, but two escort ships, although since the Seisakokans didn't conveniently paint their ships' names on their sides, I never did find out what the second one was called. 

We all stayed up on deck as the ships headed in towards Seisakoku, trying to stay out of the way of the sailors . . . which wasn't as easy as it sounds when all we had to indicate that we _were_ in the way was a bit of muttering and eye-rolling. I think we were all eager for our first sight of what had been a mythical land to all but two of us. 

Thanks to the ships' houjutsu engines, Seisakoku went fairly quickly from a grey-blue blot on the horizon to stark, brownish hills. We turned and tacked along the shore for a bit, and it was . . . disturbing. We were just close enough that we could all see the complete absence of any softening vegetation over the bones of the land. The hills were more like sand dunes, with weathered rock showing here and there in the creases between them. 

I drifted over to stand beside Alazon, Beryes and Saralegui. "Was it already this bad when you left?" I asked. 

"It has been this bad since before we were born," Alazon said. "Or nearly so. When we first reached the outside world, I thought it was paradise—so many green and growing things, just as Gilbert had told me . . . I had not believed it was possible." 

"The condition of the land will improve slightly as we approach Yelshiurad," Beryes added. "What farming still takes place tends to be close to the cities." 

"'Yelshiurad'? Is that the capital?" 

Alazon nodded. "The name means 'Yelshi's Peace', after the founder of our nation, who fought for our freedom from the Dark Ones." 

I blinked. _Dark Ones?_ That almost sounded like it might refer to Originators . . . but given that whatever had happened had taken place thousands of years ago, and Shinzoku lifespans were barely longer than those of normal humans, I wasn't likely to get enough authentic information to confirm that even if I asked. 

There _was_ agriculture going on near the city, but even that looked rather . . . dried out, I guess you could say. Despite the irrigation ditches, the vegetation was more yellow-brown than green, and I thought it was droopy, too, although it was difficult to distinguish details like that from a couple of hundred meters out. 

Yelshiurad itself looked like it belonged in the Mediterranean somewhere, with whitewashed buildings rising on stairstep terraces above the harbour. We passed a few small fishing boats on the way in—really, they weren't much more than driftwood rafts, half of them so meager that they were actually awash in a couple of inches of ocean water. The people manning them were skinny, burnt dark by the sun, and, yes, stark naked. 

Our escort boxed us into one corner of the harbour, where we were allowed to tie the ship up to a pair of stubby pillars that jutted up from a stone dock. One of the other ships tied up right across from us, and dropped a ladder over the side so that someone with Shinzoku-blonde hair could scramble down it and run along the dock as though marauding sandbears were after him. I watched him until he disappeared into a tower one terrace up from the docks proper . . . and then I squinted at the tower, because there was just something about it that was teasing at my brain. 

Then I had it, and I muttered something vile. 

"Shouri? Is something wrong?" Yuuri gave me a guileless look. 

"Nothing I shouldn't have expected," I said, looking again at the roundish shadows inside the tower windows. 

I was ninety percent sure that they were cannon muzzles, and a hundred percent sure that they were pointed at us. And everything—all the buildings, all the ships, even the people—stank subtly of an Originator's miasma.


	33. Chapter 26

There must have been quite an uproar at the palace once the information that Alazon had returned had percolated up the chain of command, because it was almost dark by the time a large party of what were obviously guards and dignitaries came down to the docks. You could tell that the people not wearing metal armour were important because they were blonde, golden-eyed . . . and fully clothed. I'd seen too many people that day running around with the equivalent of bikini thong briefs as their only clothing not to attach significance to that fact. 

I watched them carefully as they climbed the gangplank. The man in the most ornate clothing, whose hair was more silver than gold, wasn't thrilled about being here, but I couldn't tell whether his sour expression was due to his preference for Alazon's political rivals, or just irritation at having to leg it down here when he'd much rather be sitting in comfort up at the palace. One of the others, though, with fully silver hair and a lined face . . . he kept his mouth in a hard, flat line, but I could see the way his eyes lit up the moment he saw Alazon. He had to be one of her supporters. 

All of them stared at Saralegui, and most of them stared at the little knot of Mazoku that had formed nearby, with Geneus and I in the lead, as befit our current pseudo-ambassadorial status. Geneus had even thrown a light illusion over us to hide the condition of our clothing—we'd escaped the palace in Small Cimaron in our traveling outfits, and three weeks without a change of clothes hadn't improved them. Use wind majutsu to bend a little light, though, and we came out looking crisp and sharp. 

The annoyed man with the silver-gilt hair was the first to break the silence when he bowed to Alazon and said, "Welcome home, my lady." _Not_ "Your Majesty", and Alazon frowned—she was far too intelligent not to notice something like that. 

"We thank you for your welcome, Lord Calmeth," she said. _Ah-ha!_ So this was the man Alazon believed to be the leader of her enemies. 

"It is a great pleasure to see you again," added the other man, the oldest one. "We were beginning to give up hope." 

Alazon gave him a . . . well, I wouldn't say it was a _genuine_ smile, exactly, but more so than the chilly thing I usually saw on her face. "And I did not expect I would ever see you again, Terruzos. This is a most welcome meeting." 

So the heads of both major factions had come to greet their queen—or was she their former queen? Interesting, regardless. _I doubt they have any idea what to do with us yet . . . so in the meanwhile, they're going to be very, very polite._

"And the others . . . ?" Terruzos was asking. 

"I fear that we are the only survivors," Alazon said. "Several died in an encounter with bandits . . . two of illness . . . one turned back . . . it has been so long that I do not even remember the names." 

"It scarcely matters how each of them died," Beryes rumbled. "They were all brave men and women. Let them be equal in honour." 

Calmeth cleared his throat. "I believe introductions are in order . . . ?" 

Alazon tilted her head. "Surely you have not forgotten my brother." 

"Indeed not, although the last time I saw Lord Beryes, he was much . . . shorter. However, the young man, and these . . . gentlemen . . ." 

"Introduce everyone, please, Beryes," Saralegui said. 

The big Shinzoku immediately bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty." That got a startled blink from Calmeth. He relaxed on hearing "King Saralegui of Small Cimaron", and went . . . extremely still . . . when Beryes got to us. I didn't understand why—he had to have been warned, and there was no way he was really such a poor politician. Maybe he'd been another one who'd believed that Mazoku were mythical? 

Calmeth did recover quickly, though. He bowed to us with the formal grace of someone who performed the action frequently, and said, "Welcome to Seisakoku, Your Majesty, my lords. I am Calmeth Endirus, regent for King Yelshi. It has been many centuries since our nation has received an embassy of any sort, and I am not entirely certain of what is appropriate, but I will attempt to accommodate you in any way I can." 

"This is merely a preliminary meeting," Geneus said. "We have no expectations, beyond the establishment of amicable relations." 

"In an odd way, Seisakoku is our closest counterpart among the human nations," I added smoothly. "Our Maoh would certainly like to see an alliance . . . but first we need to get better acquainted." 

"We can certainly arrange that, Lord Shouri—it is 'Lord' Shouri and not 'Prince', correct?" 

I nodded. "Our monarchy isn't hereditary. If something were to happen to my brother, I might be chosen to replace him, but more likely it would be someone else." Actually, even my claim to lordship in Shin Makoku was pretty fuzzy—I don't think I would have been granted even a nebulous title if I hadn't been Yuuri's brother _and_ a double-black _and_ endowed with extremely powerful maryoku _and_ distantly related to the von Wincotts. 

"We use the titles 'prince' and 'princess' only for the spouse of the currently reigning Maoh, and that only on formal occasions," Conrad added. Thankfully, Wolfram had the sense to keep his mouth shut—I didn't even want to think about the number of problematic things he might have said just then. 

Calmeth inclined his head. "Well, we've prepared accommodations for your lordships up at the palace. If you would care to accompany us?" 

I'd half-expected the rickshaws—no beasts of burden meant that humans would have to take up the slack. What I hadn't expected was that the men harnessed to them would be in such terrible shape. Thin, okay, but these guys all had their ribs showing . . . and familiar tattoos on their faces. And no clothes, not even the bikini thongs that seemed to be the most common garb on the waterfront. 

Yuuri opened his mouth to say something. Fortunately, Murata was used to my brother and quick on the uptake, and was able to grab him, cover his mouth with one hand, and shake his head sharply. 

"If you don't mind, Lord Calmeth, we'd like to walk," I said, in a mild, even tone of voice. "We've been stuck on board ship with no opportunity to stretch our legs for three weeks now." 

Alazon froze. I don't think she'd really _seen_ the rickshaws and the slaves until I'd spoken—she'd just accepted them as something familiar, even after a decade and a half of absence. My words had jarred her into realizing what _we_ were seeing as we looked at that pathetic group of emaciated men, and I don't think she liked it one bit. 

Calmeth's eyebrows rose. "Of course, if that is your preference. It _is_ a fine evening." A quiet exchange of orders with the leader of the guard troop resulted in the rickshaws pulling away empty. Terruzos even looked vaguely approving. 

The guards formed up around us. I'm sure Calmeth would have claimed it was for our protection, but anyone with half a brain would also have been able to see that the arrangement would keep any of us from escaping. 

The streets winding up toward the palace were eerily empty. The only sounds, other than those made by our own feet, were the whistle of the breeze and the occasional clacking or chiming of things disturbed by it. It took me a while to figure out that what was bothering me the most was the absence of rustling leaves. For some reason, my subconscious insisted that, if there weren't any people around, there should be trees, or at least grass and bushes. 

The absence of people in the streets didn't mean that the city was uninhabited. I could feel the mixture of water and other elements that I associated with living beings inside almost every building we passed. Once or twice, I even caught a glimpse of lamplight and eyes peeking out between the crevices of metal shutters. No, the city was definitely inhabited. It was just that the inhabitants were afraid . . . or maybe they'd been warned off the streets by Calmeth's men. He might not want any official witnesses to Alazon's return. 

Saralegui was limping a bit by the time we reached the palace gates, but although Beryes hovered behind him and Yuuri watched him with concern, the young king refused to complain or ask for any kind of help. He did, however, shift most of his weight onto his good leg while we waited for the guards to get the gate open. 

The royal palace of Seisakoku was the most ornate building I had ever seen . . . and thanks to Bob, I had seen plenty. Modern Earth decor tends more toward clean lines, though, whereas Seisakoku went in for clutter and gold leaf. Or at least, I hoped it was gold leaf, because if it was all solid gold . . . 

"I have arranged for a meal to be made ready for you," Calmeth said with a bow. "It will no doubt be . . . less than you are accustomed to, but our king believes in embracing austerity in order to show solidarity with the people." 

"Oh, whatever you have will be okay," Yuuri said with a smile. "Man! I'm so hungry I could eat a horse! Right, Shouri?" 

There was a moment of frozen silence during which I fought not to hide my face in my hands. 

"I regret there will be no horse on the menu, young lord . . . I'm sorry, I don't believe I caught your name." 

Probably because we hadn't actually introduced either Yuuri or Murata. "I'm sorry," I said. "Yuuri was raised alongside my brother and myself, although he's only a distant cousin, and he sometimes takes . . . liberties." 

"Ah. I . . . see." 

"I'm certain that whatever you have prepared will be more than acceptable," I added. 

"Then if you would like a few moments to freshen up . . ." 

I nodded. "Please." 

The guest rooms we were led to were actually a series of small suites, each with a sitting room, dressing room, and one or two bedrooms. The beds themselves, however, were less comfortable than the ones we'd had aboard ship, with colourful quilts covering thin mattresses. 

"More austerity measures?" I wondered aloud as I tested the one in the suite Geneus and I had chosen for ourselves. 

"Most likely. Have you noticed something else? No lanterns. And no fireplaces. They cannot afford to burn anything but the meanest trash. Without houseki, they would not even be able to light their homes at night." 

"Makes me wonder if they're going to serve us sashimi for supper. Marinated raw fish," I explained as my lover's eyebrows rose. "By the way, all these houseki . . . are you going to be all right?" There were a dozen in the room, set into the walls and ceiling. I could feel them as a headachy tension in the back of my mind. 

Geneus nodded. "These are very low-grade. I doubt they will do much more than make myself and young Lord von Bielefelt a bit queasy." 

I nodded, and went over to check the view out the window. The shutters on the window were made of polished copper, and when I opened them I got a nice view of an empty, dirt-floored courtyard with a dry fountain, and the wall of another building somewhat less than ten metres away. It looked like they weren't about to risk us rappelling down the outside of the palace to flee in the middle of the night, although why they thought we would bother . . . 

There was a knock at the door. Geneus, being nearer to it, went to open it. 

"D'you mind if we come in?" Murata's voice. When Geneus stood aside, we got not just him, but Yuuri and Wolfram. 

" _Cousin?_ " Yuuri blurted out before Wolfram was all the way inside. I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose as Geneus closed the door. 

"It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment." I gave my little brother a glare. "You _did_ kind of put me on the spot, you know." 

"I was just trying to break the ice!" 

"Most people would be slapped down for talking informally to someone so far above them in rank, wimp," Wolfram said. 

"You're supposed to be avoiding drawing attention to yourself, remember?" I added. "That means staying under Calmeth's radar. And Yelshi's, when we meet him. The _whole point_ of all this is that we don't want to let them know that you're the Maoh. So be quiet, stay in the background, and let Geneus and I _do our job_. And don't give me that stubborn look, either." I sounded disturbingly . . . well, not like Mom, really, but like Mom might have sounded if she'd been less of a flake. 

"Fortunately, there should be very few formal functions from this point on that our entire party will be expected to attend," Geneus said. "You should be able to act informally and explore the palace while we spend our time in official discussions." 

"Meaning that I have a look at the library and you talk to the servants while they—" Murata nodded at me and Geneus. "—do the boring stuff." 

"Well, okay, but do you really think the servants are going to know anything about the sword?" Yuuri asked. 

"Maybe," Murata said seriously. "Stranger things have happened. And if there's anything here to be learned, you have a better chance of getting it from the servants than from Calmeth. He's the kind of guy who isn't really susceptible to your brand of charm: middle-aged, proud, and grumpy as hell. He thinks that giving in to you would make him look bad." 

Yuuri sighed. "It seems like those kinds of guys end up running everything more often than not, even if no one really _wants_ them to." 

"It's because they look good to other grumpy middle-aged guys," I said. "Um, not _that kind_ of good, though." 

My brother wrinkled his nose. "I hadn't even thought of taking it that way until you said it, and now I can't get the picture out of my head. Thanks a lot, Shouri." 

Murata grinned crookedly. "It's just 'cause you're undersexed, Shibuya. You'll get over it." 

"To the point of finding two guys like _that_ getting it on appealing? I doubt it." 

"That's because you have no sense of adventure—" 

"Friend-of-my-brother," I said. 

"Yes?" 

"Stop teasing him. If you've got that much free time on your hands, try to think about where Seisakoku might be hiding another Originator." 

"I don't think there's really one here," Wolfram said before Murata could answer. "This is just a waste of time." 

I blinked at him, genuinely nonplussed. "You mean you can't feel it?" 

Wolfram scowled. "Feel what?" 

"The miasma . . . It's like everything here is coated in a thin layer of slime or grease or something." 

"I would say, rather, that a low level of that kind of energy has been here for so long that it has soaked into everything and everyone in the country," Geneus said. "The result is a faint but unmistakable psychic stench." 

Wolfram was still scowling. "Unlike _some_ people, I can't use my powers here," he said. "Not enough to be useful, anyway." 

"Is that why they keep slaves?" Yuuri asked. 

"I doubt it, Shibuya. People do nasty things to other people all the time without an Originator to help them along . . . although I doubt the condition of the country has helped much. Do you understand now why I shut you up back by the docks?" 

Yuuri grimaced. "Because my blowing up wouldn't actually have saved anyone but the handful of slaves that were on the docks at that moment. I think." 

"Pretty much. We need to fix the root cause before we can work on the other stuff that's happened because of it. And that means healing the land." 

"And that means finding the sword," Yuuri completed. 

"And someone to use it." Murata tilted his head so that light reflected off his glasses. 

"I don't think any of us is going to back out now that we've seen this." I gestured toward the window. "Saralegui may be another matter, though. It's difficult to figure out his reaction to anything." 

Geneus raised an eyebrow. "Truly? I find him quite transparent. He will help them—because he requires assistance to retake Small Cimaron and had rather earn it than receive it as charity, because he cares nothing for personal risk . . . and because of Yelshi. His anger at Alazon will not outweigh those. Indeed, he may rather enjoy the opportunity to show her up." 

Yuuri sighed. "You're probably right, but . . . I just wish Sara would do the right thing for the _right_ reason, for once." 

"Someday, maybe he will," Murata said, with one of his goofy false smiles. "I've figured out that nothing's impossible when you're around. Right now he's got a lot to work through, though." 

Yuuri looked like he was about to say something else, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door, and my brother went instantly to open it. 

"Sara!" he said in surprised, and then stopped. "No, you're . . ." 

"Please come in, King Yelshi," Geneus said. "And close the door. I take it you are not supposed to be here." 

"Technically I'm not, but Calmeth hasn't put any guards on this area," said the shadowy figure. "He seems to be more interested in keeping me away from my . . . family." 

"Well, get out of the _way_ , wimp!" 

Yuuri twitched, and raised his hand to rub the back of his head. "Oh yeah, right." 

Getting a clearer look at Yelshi as he stepped into the room, I could understand why Yuuri had mistaken him for Saralegui: he might have a different hairstyle, no glasses, and a forehead marked by the same symbol as Alazon bore, but they really were identical twins. 

"And what can we do for Your Majesty?" Geneus asked. 

Yelshi took a deep breath. "I need your help, if you're willing to give it." 

"Go on," I said. 

"For now, all I really want is the transmission of a couple of messages—to my mother, and my brother. These," he added, pulling out two sheets of paper, folded, sealed, and with names written on them. "You're likely to have freer access to them than I will in the near future." 

Yuuri took the letters from his hand. "Sure, we'll pass them on." Without even a thought for the risk . . . but I had to admit myself that in this case, the risk was low. 

"If you are looking to rid yourself of Calmeth, there may be a regrettable limit on the amount of aid we can offer," Geneus warned. "We have other concerns here than politics." 

Yelshi clearly understood the steps of the dance as well as I did. "If I can assist you in any way . . ." 

"Perhaps," Geneus said. "Although I do not know how much ancient history would have been included in your education." 

Whatever Yelshi had been expecting, that hadn't been it. "Ancient history?" 

"Four thousand years ago, what is now Shin Makoku was nearly destroyed by a supernatural creature. Mere weeks ago, we found another, similar being in northern Cimaron, and there is evidence suggesting that it came from here, although much more recently—at the time your holy sword was stolen. We wish to track the creatures to their source and ascertain whether there is a third." 

"And there might be a connection to your holy sword, too," I added—if Geneus was going to trust Yelshi, we might as well go all the way. "The energies it puts out seem to be inimical to those creatures—as though someone made it that way on purpose." 

Yelshi frowned. "What do you know about our holy sword?" 

"Geneus was the person your mother hired to retrieve it," I said. "He analyzed the spells on it—and despite being a Mazoku, he's likely one of the most knowledgeable houjutsu sorcerers you'll find outside Seisakoku, so at the moment he may know more about it than anyone." Murata snorted, but I ignored that. "I was the one who drew it for the first time after he found it," I added. "It was so low on power that it nearly ate me alive, trying to fill itself back up again. My brother had to pry me loose," I admitted with a grimace. I'd promised myself that I'd be truthful about Yuuri's accomplishments where possible, but that still stung. 

Yelshi was still frowning. "Lord Shouri, I realize this is an unusual request, but . . . would you please take my hand? Just for a moment?" 

"Sure." I held out my left one—I wanted the right free to deal with trouble, just in case. A tickle of power assessed my maryoku, then withdrew. 

"So it was you," Yelshi said. "I had wondered what sort of power it was that I sensed in the sword, but if it is majutsu and not houjutsu, everything makes perfect sense." 

"It did end up here, then." 

Yelshi nodded. "Calmeth placed it in my hands a few days ago, then took it away from me again and hid it somewhere when I refused to use it. I wondered then where he had gotten it." 

"He stole it. Or someone working for him did." I left out the part about Saralegui being run through and left for dead. That would be for the young king of Small Cimaron to tell . . . or not, if that was what he preferred. 

"That does sound like something he would do." Yelshi sighed. "If I withhold the sword's power, my people will continue to suffer, but if Calmeth takes the credit for finding it, I'll never pry him loose." 

"Then we need to retrieve the sword," Geneus said. "Permit me to think on this for a time. Once I have some semblance of a plan, we can act." 

Yelshi bowed. "My thanks. And now I should return to my own chambers before I am missed. I will command that you be given complete access to the library and archives to search for the information you need—I do have that much power." 

No one spoke until the door had once more clicked shut behind the young king, but everyone seemed a bit uneasy. 

Murata broke the silence at last. "I know we need an ally here, but are you sure he's the best choice?" he asked, scowling. 

"Do you have a better?" Geneus asked, eyebrow raised. "If we do this correctly, we can place him so deeply in our debt that he will never find his way out again." 

"I don't want to use anyone like that," Yuuri said in a very soft voice. 

"Unfortunately, Shibuya, that's what politics tends to be like. At least in this case, it's an equal exchange—the information we need in return for help against his political enemies. Although I don't much like that part, either," he added, giving Geneus a sour look. 

"If you wish to halt the exchange, Yuuri-sama, I will of course respect your wishes." 

Yuuri hesitated, then shook his head decisively. "No, we'll keep on for now, but . . . it's an equal trade, okay? Information for help. None of this keeping him in debt forever stuff." 

"As you will." Geneus bowed smoothly. 

"It still kind of weirds me out when you do that, you know," Yuuri said with a grimace. "Especially with you and Shouri being, um, together. Even Günter doesn't usually bow to me anymore, at least not in private." 

"My apologies. It will take me a little while longer to rid myself of the reflex—Alazon and Lanzhil both preferred extreme subservience, and so it has been my default mode since I awoke into the modern era." 

My brother sighed. "Waltorana would approve, I guess. Although that just makes it feel worse." 

"Lord Waltorana has a great deal of pride but somewhat less common sense . . . which means that the Bielefelt line is still breeding true four thousand years later, since Rufus was much the same," Geneus said. I recognized the expression on his face as nostalgic, even if no one else did. 

Murata tilted his head. "Well, kind of. Rufus always struck me as more . . . flexible." 

"Rufus was born into an era where he had to adapt or die," Geneus pointed out. "Were you to transplant him into the modern world, I suspect he would allow himself to be more rigid and reactionary." 

"It must feel kind of strange," Yuuri said. "Looking at people and seeing their great-great-I-don't-know-how-many-greats-grandparents, I mean." 

Geneus smiled. "It is a dissonance that any Mazoku with human friends or acquaintances is bound to experience sooner or later. The difference is merely one of degree, not of kind." 

That left Yuuri with an odd expression on his face. I guess he'd never thought before about what choosing to be Mazoku was going to mean. I'd come to grips with it now, or at least I thought I had. But in a way, I had less to come to grips _with_ : the people who mattered most to me were either older—which meant that I would have lost them eventually even if I'd chosen to be entirely human—or Mazoku themselves. But Yuuri had Greta and Murata, and I wasn't sure which of them was going to hurt him more in the end. 

I wondered suddenly if I should have included Saralegui on that list. Yuuri's friendship for him seemed to be . . . very strong. And it sometimes seemed like the young Shinzoku halfbreed returned his affections. When he wasn't choosing to be a manipulative ass, which was most of the time. As Murata had said, he had a lot to work through. 

"They're probably going to be calling us for supper soon," Murata said, "so we should get back to our own rooms. Unless you've got something more that you think you need to say, Shibuya." 

"I guess not. Okay, fine, let's go." 

Yuuri left. Wolfram left. The door clicked shut. 

"Stop interfering," Murata said, his back to the closed door, his eyes boring into Geneus, who raised his eyebrows. 

"Interfering?" 

"Shin'ou and I agreed that we would try to affect the modern world as little as possible—we don't need Shibuya and the others to become dependent on the dead past." 

"There are two misconceptions in that. First, I was not a party to your agreement and I will not have you implicitly extending it to include me because of our shared past. And secondly, I am _not_ dead, not anymore, although if you choose to define yourself that way, that is your privilege." 

Murata flinched. 

"I see you clearly now," Geneus continued relentlessly. "Whatever memories you may hold, you are in many ways a mere child. I will not allow you to lessen me. You have no right. You are less who we were than I am." 

I laid my hand on his arm. "I think that's enough," I said. 

"Perhaps you are correct," my lover admitted. "In the end, I am angry at myself more than him. I allowed myself to be misled, like a very fool." 

"We all make mistakes," I said. "It's owning up to them that's important." 

Murata flinched again, although I hadn't even been talking to him, really. _He honestly doesn't know how to handle being mistaken that way,_ I realized. _Being misinformed or having a plan not come out quite right due to unforseen circumstances is one thing, but just plain being_ wrong _. . . he still can't entirely wrap his head around it. Around what he did. The Great Sage would know about being wrong, but I bet that_ Ken Murata _, while he may have been confused and slightly crazy from time to time, has always used the Sage's knowledge to short-circuit even the_ possibility _of that kind of wrongness. Until he ended up in a situation so far outside his experience that he couldn't anymore._

_Everything since that attack on Geneus has been the same kind of backpeddling I would have done when I was six years old and Mom caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. He has no emotional grasp of what it means to be that wrong, because he's spent his entire life pretending that the part of him that has that depth of understanding really isn't him at all. Just like Geneus has spent his entire life submerging himself in the past . . . Strictly speaking, I'm not sure which of them is crazier at this point, but I think Geneus is actually more stable. Murata has no reason to hold himself together anymore, so he's crumbling around the edges. Does he even believe he has a future?_

I almost winced when my eyes met his. He looked terrified, trapped, and sick. Thing was, I couldn't see what I could do to help him. He'd dug this hole for himself, even if it had been by accident, and he needed to build the ladder to climb out, too. He should know how, if he would just let himself admit it. 

_Pull yourself together,_ I willed. _Because if you crack, I don't know how I'm going to explain it to Yuuri._


	34. Chapter 27

Yelshi was noticeably absent at dinner—we dined instead with Calmeth, Terruzos, and a few other members of the court. The food wasn't _meager_ exactly, but portions were doled out in advance, a single plateful per person, and everyone ate everything they were given, even the roast grubs. I poked at mine suspiciously before forcing myself to put a sporkful in my mouth, because I would have sworn some of them were still wiggling, but they turned out to be quite dead, and not half as bad as I'd expected (so long as I didn't think about what I was eating, anyway). Chewy and kind of sesame-flavoured. Dessert was a sweet wine served in tiny beaten-gold cups the size of shot glasses, although we'd had only water with the rest of the meal. Yuuri seemed about to refuse his, but Murata grabbed him by the arm and shook his head: anything edible or drinkable was so valuable here that it might be a really nasty insult to turn it down. Besides, I reflected as I sipped mine, it didn't seem to be all that alcoholic. I hoped. 

The main topic of conversation while we were eating was the condition of the offshore fisheries. Well, until Yuuri made a baseball reference and someone was foolish enough to ask him for an explanation, resulting in half an hour's discussion of Shin Makoku's new national sport. Topics of importance were very carefully avoided, just like the Seisakoku nobles we were dining with were carefully avoiding staring at Alazon or Saralegui, mostly by staring at Geneus and I and Beryes instead. 

Thankfully, no one suggested that we do anything except go back to our rooms afterwards. I collapsed onto the thin mattress of our bed with a grateful sigh. 

"Beloved? Are you well?" 

"Yeah." 

"Do not lie to me." The words were firm, but the expression on his face . . . I saw fear in his eyes, quickly veiled. 

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to worry you. It's just the miasma and the houseki. I don't _quite_ have a headache, but I've spent all evening feeling like I'm going to get one, if you know what I mean." 

Geneus sat down on the side of the bed and put his hand on my chest. Healing majutsu flowed through me like warm honey, and after a moment I felt myself sinking bonelessly into the bed as the pressure inside my head went away. His power rippled over me, gently testing, and suddenly my lover frowned. 

"There is something else—a thread of foreign majutsu clinging to you. It does not seem to be _doing_ anything, but . . ." 

_But there shouldn't be any Mazoku here whose power-signature we don't recognize,_ I completed with a grimace. _And you're more susceptible to houseki than I am._ I shouldn't have needed to see the strain on his face to remember that. I reached up, cupped my hand against his jaw, and sent him a bit of healing, too. His breath caught, and I saw his shoulders sag just a hair in relief. 

"I take it there's no way to disguise who cast a given piece of majutsu," I said. 

"None that I am aware of, although something may have been developed while I was . . . unable to take an interest. This, however, feels old, and . . ." A long hesitation. "I think it may be a dying curse, although I have only four-thousand-year-old hearsay to support the concept that our power may be used so." 

More lost arts, more ancient history . . . 

"Am I in any danger from this?" That was really the most important thing right now. 

A moment of silence, and then Geneus shook his head firmly. "It is wind majutsu, but it lacks the force needed to act as a method of control. However, you may have nightmares if I do not detach it—it is engaged with you in a way that will bypass your dream seals." 

"Leave it," I said. "We might find out something useful. Just . . . be here when I wake up, okay?" 

"How could I not?" 

There were thin sheets under the quilt. We cuddled together between them, still wearing our Cimaronese boxer-briefs—neither of us was in the mood for sex. I drifted off with my face pressed to Geneus' shoulder. 

_Every motion made the barbed blade in my guts shift, tearing me a little farther. If I pulled it loose, I would bleed out, and so I stayed pinned to my seat while the palace burned around me, carpets and tapestries and fine wood paneling all going up in smoke because of the ambitions of a handful of men. My hand still curled loosely around Tessen's hilt, but I had scarcely enough maryoku left to fill a thimble—certainly not enough to quench the flames, even with the aid of my sword. The crown crossing my brow now symbolized, not sovereignty, but failure._

_"Here! Here he is!"_

_They moved like shadows among the flames, although their golden hair should have made things otherwise. They formed a loose semi-circle in front of me, each with barbed blades in either hand._

_And then the fire parted, and_ he _came forward, standing in front of me with his remaining blade raised. A tall man, broad-shouldered, with golden hair and golden eyes that didn't look quite human . . . a failed attempt at creating their own version of us._

_"Yelshi." The name emerged as a croak—my throat was so dry . . ._

_"Vetruan." He gave me no title . . . but then, in his eyes I doubtless deserved none. "A pleasure to meet you at last."_

_"You'll have to pardon me for being less than interested in small talk. I'm feeling a bit under the weather." A gesture took in the barbed knife and a thousand lesser hurts, cuts and burns and bruises. My clothes were soaked in blood, torn and charred._

_"Well, you'll doubtless be glad to know that you'll be able to join your family soon."_

_I gritted my teeth, and forced myself not to respond. My wife, our daughter . . . our infant son . . . all gone on to where I could not reach them. And I had no doubt that they had been sent there in the grimmest and most painful manner possible._

_Yelshi gestured to one of the other men. "Move him. As we planned."_

_"I'm not sure that's such a good idea. From the angle of that knife, several of his major arteries have been damaged."_

_"Suggestions?"_

_"Leave him to bleed out here."_

_"No, I want him as one of the test subjects. He has more power than any of the others, so he should give the best results."_

Stop talking about me like I'm not here, damn you! _My legs scrabbled weakly against the floor—I hadn't been able to move them properly since the knife went in, but oh, how I wanted to! The most miserable part of all of this was my inability to_ do _anything. Oh, I might grab the handle of the knife and drag it sideways and out, but I wasn't willing to give up my life without getting something in return._

_Like Yelshi's neck._

_One of them gave the back of the throne a firm heave, jarring me, and I bared gritted teeth, fighting against the tickle in my throat that I knew came from blood. I wasn't going to give these monsters so much as a cough._

_"I don't think this is bolted down—it's just heavy. We can lift it_ and _him, take the whole thing downstairs, and perform the extraction." That was the fussy-looking one with the little round reading glasses perched on the end of his nose._

_Yelshi nodded. "All right, then. One man on each leg, and one more to steady the back. Move!"_

_Spitting blood at him would have been a petty revenge, unworthy of me. Instead, I gave him a narrow-eyed glare._

I am your end. Know it and despair. _I was not going to give up. If they left me alive, no matter in what condition, then they were fools. The hatred roiling in my gut would not be sated until Yelshi's life had trickled away between my fingers._

_I thrashed as they lifted me, but only succeeded in causing some cursing and perhaps a few bruises. If Tessen had been an ordinary sword, I might have cut one of them down, but it had never been made for such common usage. Instead, I weakly pulled it up and across my lap. If this took long enough, the properties of the maseki blade might regenerate my power sufficiently for one last surprise attack._

_They carried me down one of the narrow servants' corridors, cursing all the way, because it was barely wide enough to admit us, and the least error meant that someone's knuckles got ground against the wall. I threw my weight from side to side, attempting to smash them as much as possible, while I tried to guess where we were going. There were stairs at the end of this, leading down to the third wine cellar, but why would they want me there?_

_Then I realized that there was an entrance there to the old siege storage, the vaulted secret rooms that were supposed to hold supplies for times of danger. They hadn't been stocked since my great-grandfather's day, and were never inspected . . . Yelshi might have hidden an army down there, and we would never have known. It did explain how they had bypassed our defenses. My fault, and my father's, and my father's father's . . . We had gotten complacent, and now I and my people were paying the price._

_They set me down briefly in the wine cellar while they worked the hidden door, cursing softly as it took them several tries to find the correct stones and press them in the correct order. Apparently they hadn't noticed the relationship between the pattern and the glyph for elemental Earth . . . or perhaps they were just ignorant of the conventions of kalãn._

_At last, the door slid aside, and they carried me down into darkness . . . or what should have been darkness. There was light, but my stomach was roiling. There were houseki here, hundreds of them. Why hadn't anyone sensed this? The majority of the service staff might have no maryoku to be disrupted, but the steward should have been inspecting the wine cellar periodically, and he was descended from one of my great-grandfather's bastards . . . had he betrayed us?_

_They set me down with a thump just inside one of the vaulted rooms. It was agonizingly well-lit, with houseki mortared to the walls. Yelshi clearly didn't want his victims to miss his extensive collection of torture devices, or the pile of bodies in the corner . . . or the one laid out on the table at the center of the room . . ._

_I gritted my teeth again, suppressing the impulse to scream her name, for it was clear that my wife wouldn't hear me—would never hear anything or anyone again. And what they had done to her . . ._

_I raised my head slowly and met Yelshi's eyes, let him see the flame of hatred burning in mine._

_"I will not rest until you are dead," I said, in a surprisingly calm tone of voice. "You, and all of your miserable golden-eyed kin. And until the last vile carcass is added to the pile before the walls of the city, this land will suffer for it. My kingdom will break in your hands and become as dust."_

_I hated him all the more when he smiled. "I was correct—you are the perfect subject for this. The perfect weapon, in embryonic form." He took an iron poker, its end heated until it glowed red, from the brazier beside him. "Shall we begin?"_

I woke shaking, my fingers sunk into Geneus' braid, not entirely certain at first where I was, or who. 

"Shouri." 

Right. Shouri. Shouri Shibuya. 

"That was ugly," I muttered, and scrubbed one hand across my face. "I wonder how long ago . . ." 

"Something on the order of five thousand years, I suspect. I left my defenses down, so that I would share your dream," Geneus added. "I thought there might be something there that I needed to see, and it appears I was correct." 

We lay for a moment in silence. Soukoku—for the woman's corpse laid out on the table had been black-haired, to match her glazed and empty eyes—Shinzoku, war, torture, and death . . . we didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but I think we were both getting some idea of what the picture on the box had to look like, and neither of us was at all happy with it. 

"That Yelshi must have been their first king," I said at length, feeling something ugly rear its head inside me as I spoke the man's name. _Torturer—murderer—_ I gritted my teeth and fought for control. His actions might enrage me, but that Yelshi had to be more than four thousand years dead. There was nothing I could do to help him or to hurt him, so exploding into anger would be a useless waste of energy. "The one that Yelshiurad is named for. Maybe Murata can use that to find something in the library to pinpoint the time a bit better." 

"Perhaps," Geneus agreed. 

There was a long pause, during which I could feel a mixture of emotions simmering in the bottom of my mind: anger and fear and . . . what was that? Something heavy and solid and ice-cold . . . 

Something twanged inside me, like a guitar string snapping, and I gasped as the anger suddenly drained away, leaving me feeling shaky. 

"What the hell . . . ?" I muttered. 

"I broke the thread," Geneus said. "It was burrowing in deeper, trying to influence your thoughts." 

A drop of cold sweat ran down my forehead. "Shit. Is that going to happen again?" 

"It may. I can sense it even now, trying to latch on to you again . . . For safety from it, you should be encased in a wind-wall, but . . ." 

"But what?" 

"It would blunt your senses, and might compromise your ability to defend yourself from other dangers." He squeezed my hand. "The choice is yours." 

"Give me a moment." There was something . . . disconcertingly icky about having that . . . thread of consciousness, dying curse, whatever-it-was . . . trying to crawl into me like a parasite, but at the same time . . . "If it can't get at me, will this thing try for someone else? Like you, or Yuuri?" 

"My defenses are more complete than yours are at this stage, and I do not believe myself to be at risk. As for your brother, I will check him in the morning, but I think his personality would make him largely immune—he lacks the darkness within that you and I possess, and this phenomenon is weak enough that even his higher general susceptibility to possession would make it unable to grasp him without such a toehold. I am more worried about Lord von Bielefelt, as his temper might make him an attractive victim, and while he might be unable to use his powers outside Shin Makoku, this Vetruan is of another order entirely." 

"Mmh." I sifted through that, trying to weigh everything as best I could with a brain still muddled by . . . that. "No wind-wall," I said at last. There were more dangers here than just this one, and I'd come to rely so much on my maryoku senses that having them muffled would be worse than something trying to sneak into my brain. "But . . . I'm counting on you to keep an eye on me. I'll be keeping an eye on myself, too." 

"As you wish." 

"You don't think I'm being stupid to take the risk?" 

His arms tightened around me. "I fear for you . . . but I would fear either way. There are so many ugly possibilities, so many things that _could_ happen, and I lack the knowledge to assess the risks properly. It is . . . extremely frustrating." 

_His greatest fear in the world right now is losing me._

"I promise that I'll be careful," I said, running my hand down his back—stroking him like a nervous cat, trying to soothe him. "And you'll be right there beside me, won't you?" 

"For the rest of my life." 

"Well, that's that, then, isn't it?" I did my best to sound firm. "You'll protect me, and I'll protect you." 

"Shouri . . ." 

"I'm here," I said, and planted a kiss on . . . well, I assume it was his cheek. Difficult to tell, when we didn't have so much as a sliver of moonlight falling through the window. It hadn't been his ear, anyway. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. And we both need some sleep without someone else's millennia-old nightmares mixed in." _You have enough millennia-old nightmares of your own._

"Even so." He shifted slightly in my grasp, pressing his face to my temple, and that was the position we were in when we fell asleep again.


	35. Chapter 28

"I think I did have some kind of nightmare," Yuuri said, smothering a yawn as he leaned against the door to the suite he was sharing with Wolfram—opposite ours, on the same hallway. "I don't remember what it was about, though." 

Wolfram said nothing. He had raccoon circles around bloodshot eyes, as though he hadn't slept a wink. I shot a glance at Geneus, who shook his head minutely: no overt signs of contamination by foreign maryoku on the young blonde, then. I hoped the mattress on his bed had just been too thin for our selfish little lordling. 

"Mmm," was all Murata said. "I wonder if they have any baths? There should be plenty of water here by the seaside . . . they've got some kind of houjutsu-driven desalinization setup. Might be a little low on soap, though." 

"Shin'ou's ass," I muttered. "Look, you three, I've got a serious reason for asking about this." 

Yuuri raised his eyebrows. "You're always serious. Makes it kind of difficult to separate out what's actually important, sometimes. I mean, _dreams_? Give me a break, Shouri." 

"The dreams we are asking about are not of natural origin, Yuuri-sama," Geneus said patiently, while I ground my teeth. "Great evil was done here, long ago, and its echoes are still reverberating through the stones of this place." 

"Fire," Wolfram muttered. 

"Wolf?" My brother almost touched his fiancé on the arm, but seemed to think better of it at the last moment. 

The little blonde squared his shoulders, raised his head, and said, "I dreamed of fire. I've . . . never been afraid of it before. That's all I remember." 

"It fits," I said. 

Murata gave me a thoughtful look. "What did _you_ dream?" 

I gave Yuuri a sidelong glance, and then told them, trying not to be too graphic about the uglier parts. 

" . . . If something did get at Wolfram, it _wasn't_ the same thing that got at me," I finished. "Vetruan didn't get very near the fire, unless they threw him back in afterwards." 

Yuuri shuddered. Murata, on the other hand, was just staring into space. Then he shook his head. 

"If I ever knew anything about this, I've forgotten it," he said. "It's just been too long." 

"There was nothing," Geneus said firmly. "She never spoke of where we came from . . . I doubt she knew." 

"'She'?" Wolfram asked. 

"My—the Great Sage's—mother," Murata said. 

"Never in that lifetime did I meet another Soukoku, only her and myself," Geneus said. "And a grave, outside a broken city." 

Murata twitched. "I'd forgotten about that." 

"Had you? This past month, it has seldom been far from my thoughts." 

Yuuri looked from one of them to the other. "I have a feeling I'm about to put my foot into it with this," he muttered, just loud enough to hear, then cleared his throat. "What about your—the Sage's—father?" 

"I never knew him," Geneus replied. "And she would not speak of him. Whether he was dead, or had left her, or the truth was more sinister . . ." He shrugged. 

"More sini—" 

"Don't ask," I said. _A child of rape. Shin'ou, I hope not. Surely his mother would have been able to use her power to abort an unwanted fetus . . ._

"It isn't important, anyway," Murata said. "The only person it would have mattered to is d—" He stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and looked at Geneus again, and I think the three of us were all remembering the same words: _I am_ not _dead, not anymore, although if you choose to define yourself that way, that is your privilege._ "No longer interested," he finished. And maybe that was even the truth. 

Another door, some distance down the hall, swung open, and we caught, " . . . know what I'm going to do—the maids here barely wear anything at all! There's no way I can pass if I have to dress like that." 

"I think you'd look quite fetching in one of those bikinis," Conrad said, drawing the door shut behind himself and Josak. "But one of the guards' uniforms would be better for blending in." 

"Might be tough to get one without anyone noticing, though," Josak pointed out. "We made a splash when we got here, and to them we're _all_ kinda memorable, rather than me being the invisible commoner . . . Oh, good morning, everyone. Are you headed for breakfast?" 

"Something like that," Yuuri said. 

The morning meal was with the court again, and this time, Yelshi did show up to join us in our meager one-piece-of-fruit-with-pseudo-English-muffin. If this was how the royal court ate, I could understand why I had yet to see a fat Shinzoku . . . except in my dreams, that was. One of the men with the first Yelshi had been building a bit of a belly. 

It was odd that the dream remained so vivid in my mind, even if it hadn't entirely been a dream. Hell, if I concentrated on the images too hard, I could feel the phantom pain of the barbed knife in my guts again . . . 

_Twang._ My bite of fruit nearly went down the wrong way, in sudden relief. My sidelong glance at Geneus got me a slight nod in return. It worried me, though, that it had happened again so soon. And there were still the echoes of that dream . . . I had a nasty feeling that I knew exactly what Yelshi-the-First had meant by "the perfect weapon, in embryonic form", and I was willing to bet that Geneus did, too. Without any proof, and without a method, I wasn't willing to discuss it, and neither was he, because I didn't want Yuuri figuring out the worst part. 

_There might be hundreds of them._ If this had been a nation of Soukoku once, and they had become the Originators . . . then just how many of them had been tortured to death in that room under the third wine cellar? How many . . . of us? Just the thought made the meager meal settle uneasily in my stomach. 

Seisakokan tea turned out to be violently bitter, as though made with lemon juice in place of water, and I had to force myself to drink mine. Murata, forewarned by the grimace I had been unable to hide completely, refused the liquid for both himself and Yuuri, and Wolfram followed suit, although he clearly didn't understand why. Only Conrad was able to drink it and smile. What Josak was doing, I didn't know—he'd drifted away from us again. Probably he'd found his way to the guards' barracks or something, and was eating with them. 

One of the younger members of the court seemed to find our distaste for their tea amusing, and snickered into his mug. A lot of the other courtiers had been giving us less-than-pleasant looks, but he was the first one who had dared be outright rude, and I made a mental note of his appearance: hair greenish, rather than the true pale Shinzoku gold of Alazon and her family, and he had a mole on the side of his neck, in a direct line with the earlobe. 

After breakfast, we had . . . diplomacy. Or _pre_ -diplomacy, really. Negotiating about how we were going to negotiate. It was stultifyingly boring, but I bore up grimly. It was for Yuuri, after all—for Yuuri and for Shin Makoku, the country that the two most important people in my life both loved dearly and felt responsible for. 

Geneus was with me through it all—the wrangles about how many representatives, who would host any follow-up negotiations, and even the dispute about the shape of the damned table we were going to meet around, where I held out for something circular mostly just to annoy Calmeth. Yelshi was there too, at least physically. Mentally, I would have bet he was with Saralegui and Alazon, doubly so because he didn't say a damned thing the whole time. Calmeth didn't seem to mind, though. It was pretty clear that the older Shinzoku wanted a puppet rather than a king . . . or a queen. That Alazon hadn't been invited showed how the currents of power were flowing at the moment. 

I hoped that Murata and Yuuri were having a more productive day, because if this turned out to have been for nothing, I was going to start screaming and throwing things. I might have trained for this, or for something very like it, but there were parts of the political dance that I think any sane person would hate. No, scratch that—even most crazy people would hate those parts. Smiling until your face hurts, pretending that what you and the other guy both _know_ was an attempt to wrestle for advantage was really just a misunderstanding and we're all friends here, aren't we? Except that if someone who's _really_ your friend is being an ass, you can tell him that, rather than dance around the topic with your fingers stuck in your ears. 

By the time we broke for dinner (lunch having been served while we were talking about the merits of round versus rectangular tables), I just wanted to curl up in a corner and gibber, preferably with Geneus' arms around me, but the day wasn't over yet. We had to attend the court dinner with Yelshi and Calmeth again, and then they'd organized another damned ball, which I hoped wasn't going to be as memorable as the last one I'd attended. 

I should have known that even hoping was pointless. It wasn't just Yuuri who seemed to be a trouble magnet, but our entire damned party. 

And that was how I found myself holding up another wall at the edge of a dance floor and smiling fit to make my aching facial muscles split. At least there was no food or drink being served, so I didn't have to worry about whether or not to accept a glass of wine . . . but I did have a flock of young women trying to glue themselves to me. Well, we all did: I guess the locals figured that any member of our group of handsome, young-seeming, exotic, _well-fed_ foreigners would be a catch. A couple of months ago, I might have enjoyed it, but now it just made me feel uncomfortable. A lot of them were pretty, in a supermodel-esque, verging-on-too-slender kind of way, but I didn't want any of them—I wanted Geneus, who was just as beleaguered as I was. 

"What is Shin Makoku like?" 

"Is it true that there's stuff growing everywhere?" 

"Your hair is just so exotic!" 

"Will you dance with me?" One girl, a shade more forward than the rest, put her hand on my arm. 

"No, he's going to dance with me!" A different girl, a redhead, yanked on my other arm. 

"Me!" 

"Me!" 

I was starting to feel disturbingly like the rope in a game of tug-of-war, but what in hell was I supposed to do? Oh, I could have detached them physically, but not gently enough to be sure that I would avoid hurting anyone. 

"I'm afraid I don't know any of the dances here," was the best I could come up with. 

"We could go out on the balcony," the redhead said with a predatory smile. I instantly flattened myself against the wall, wishing that it had handles so that I could keep her from dragging me away against my will. "It's kind of warm in here, don't you think?" 

"That's cheating, Mari," said one of the several blondes, giving the redhead a nasty look. "Not to mention common." 

"Besides, ladies, if I'm not very much mistaken, Lord Shouri is already with someone." 

I almost ground my teeth. With the girls dividing my attention, I once more hadn't detected Saralegui's approach. At least I could be sure it was Saralegui—even if he'd borrowed his brother's glasses and covered up his forehead mark, Yelshi wouldn't have had Beryes trailing around after him looking stoic. 

Mari smiled up at me, and ran her hand up my arm. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her, now will it?" 

A familiar hand—long-fingered, but wider than hers, and with a faint scar curving sharply across the back—grasped her by the wrist and lifted her hand away from me. 

"I most assuredly _will_ know," Geneus said, in an even-toned voice, but the glitter in his eyes told the real story, saying _mine_ without words. 

"Oh, so _that's_ how the wind blows, is it?" Mari smirked. "Don't flatter yourself. Shouri is going to need an heir sooner or later, and for that he needs a woman—unless of course your majutsu can do things that houjutsu never could. Why _not_ me? I'll even let you be together . . . sometimes." 

" _Mari._ " 

Mari looked up and yelped. Apparently she hadn't seen the young Shinzoku man approaching. 

"I'm sorry, my lords," the man said. "My sister is . . ." He made a small gesture in the direction of his head, and then mimed throwing something away. I wasn't sure whether that was supposed to translate to "thoughtless", "stupid", or "not quite sane"—right now, I was betting on all three. "She was _supposed_ to stay with me, but I made the mistake of greeting a friend, and . . ." 

"Think nothing of it," Geneus said, smiling. But his hand came to rest lightly on my arm in the exact spot Mari had touched. _Mine_. Not a Wolfram-like insane possessiveness—I knew that if I asked him to, he would back off immediately—but something solid, warm, and reassuring that gave me a sense of being wanted and loved. 

I placed my hand on top of his, and smiled, just for him, watching the subtle transformation in his face as I did. I doubted he'd taken Mari seriously as a rival for even one second, but there was a part of him that always would be insecure. He'd lost so much, so many people, over the years . . . and although I'd promised to follow him into eternity, I wasn't sure he entirely believed it. We'd never spoken of it again. 

We had, I realized with a jolt, acquired quite an audience: dozens of Shinzoku, including Yelshi and Calmeth, Alazon, and even Yuuri and Murata. And it occurred to me suddenly that there was a way that we could avoid having this sordid little scene repeated ever again. I hadn't thought about it before—hadn't thought it was necessary—but now that it had popped into my head, I realized that I _wanted_ to do it. 

I was going to fall back on Earth tradition, I decided. I'd never liked the Shin Makoku version—too easily misunderstood by the receiving party, and too risky if there were other people who might get in the way. And besides, none of the Shinzoku would know what was going on if I did it that way. 

And so I licked my lips and said, "Geneus. I love you. Will you marry me?" 

He froze, just for half an instant—as much surprise as he would dare show, here in public. "Shouri, I—" 

"Yes or no," I prodded gently. 

He closed his eyes, and a faint shiver ran through him. "Then . . . yes. I am yours in all things." 

And something deep inside me burst open, flooding me with unexpected joy. This was more than just a private understanding or a promise made in the dark. _Mine in all things._ Mine in front of everyone, mine forever . . . It wasn't until I felt tears of happiness spill over onto my face that I realized just how _much_ I had wanted that. For it to be official. For people to know. 

_He sees me as worthy. He does!_ That thought again came from very deep in me, from a source that I didn't understand. From my soul, maybe? Who had I been, four thousand years ago? _Did I love you even then?_

I wrapped my arms around him, and kissed him slowly and thoroughly until someone made a throat-clearing noise and I realized with a jolt that we were still surrounded by Shinzoku and the odd Mazoku. I flushed slightly, but I didn't let go of my . . . husband-to-be, although we did break off the kiss. 

"Disgusting," said one of the Shinzoku. He looked familiar, but it took me a moment to place him: the greenish-haired youth who had laughed at us over breakfast this morning. 

"Really?" said Terruzos. "I think they're kind of sweet. Rather like my granddaughter and her fiancé . . . and you have no manners, Kellellan." The elderly Shinzoku offered us an unexpectedly kind smile. 

"Of course _you_ would think so," Kellellan said. "You always have been _fond_ of foreigners." 

"That is inappropriate, Lord Kellellan." Really, I was kind of surprised that Calmeth would bother to rein in the younger Shinzoku, given how enthusiastic he hadn't been about the negotiations. Or maybe he was just smart enough to know that pissing off the emissaries of another nation wasn't the best way for Seisakoku to maintain its isolation. 

Kellellan gave Calmeth a flinty look. "I will excuse myself, then. My lord regent." 

Calmeth muttered something that I think included the word "hothead" as they exchanged bows, and the younger Shinzoku faded away into the pack of young nobles. 

"My apologies, my lords. Kellellan has always been a rabble-rouser. Congratulations on your engagement." 

"Thank you," I said. 

"All you need now are the earrings," Yelshi said as he appeared at Calmeth's elbow. His grin was unnervingly like his brother's. 

I blinked. "Earrings?" 

"Normally, the members of an engaged couple each wear an earring in their right ear—the left one isn't pierced until the marriage ceremony. We really should arrange something, just to make sure that everyone's aware you're both off-limits." 

"Seisakokan tradition?" I muttered. 

"So it appears," Geneus murmured back. "We do not have to go along with it if you do not wish, but it does seem that it would simplify matters." 

I didn't want to admit that the thought of someone sticking a needle through my ear gave me a kind of crawly feeling in the pit of my stomach, but . . . "I think it's a little late to go jewelry shopping today," I said, feeling a moment of relief that faded when I saw that Yelshi was still wearing that mischievous smile. 

"Oh, we have thousands of earrings in the royal treasury. I'll have them find a selection of appropriate ones for our noble guests." 

Somehow, I managed not to shudder as Yelshi gave orders to a servant. It was a near thing, though. 

"I _will_ hold your hand, if you wish it," Geneus said, eyes sparkling with laughter, "but I promise you that if they are competent at all, there will be very little pain and we will be able to heal it almost immediately." 

"I'm less worried about that than the fact we seem to have two Saraleguis on our hands," I lied, and felt the tremour of a suppressed chuckle run through my beloved. 

Yelshi spared no effort to embarrass us . . . well, embarrass me, at any rate. Geneus seemed to be constantly on the edge of laughter as no less than four servants hauled in a huge dresser-like piece of furniture with what looked like hundreds of shallow felt-lined metal drawers. Then they started pulling those drawers out, and, well, I'd never seen so many earrings . . . or wanted to. Especially ones that looked like those. 

"What about these, Shibuya's-big-brother?" Murata asked, holding up a pair of . . . things . . . that involved large pink crystals. And feathers. And I think there might have been bells in there somewhere, too. "They look very . . . you." 

"Try it and I'll feed them to you, friend-of-my-brother," I growled. Murata just gave me a lopsided grin, light reflecting from his glasses. Yelshi had his mouth hidden behind his hand. So did Saralegui. 

"I would suggest the bottom drawers," Alazon said, surprising me, because I hadn't thought she would care. Or maybe she just wanted the whole farce over with as much as I did. "The jewelry in there is of older and simpler design. It might suit you better." 

I bent down myself and pulled the bottom drawer all the way out, laying it on top of the one whose contents I'd been dubiously examining. Simpler, yes, but it didn't look like the contents had been maintained or even examined in quite some time. Tarnished silver, a cracked opal looped about by greenish wire, golden hoops almost large enough to be worn as bracelets . . . Wait, what was that, in the back corner? Silvery metal—not actual silver, though, since they weren't tarnished like the rest. Four broken rings, each maybe a centimetre and a half in diameter, the metal around a millimetre thick. They looked like the best bet I'd seen so far. 

I held one up so that Geneus could see it. 

"I have no objection," my lover said slowly. "However, I hope you realize that those are not meant to be removed, once put in place, and the alloy of which they are made cannot be worked without the application of high heat and caustic chemicals. If you wanted the earring off again, it would have to be cut out of your flesh." 

I winced, because that sounded even more painful than having my ear pierced in the first place. No one in Shin Makoku would care if I wore earrings, of course—plenty of men there did, with Waltorana being the first example who came to mind—but it might be awkward back on Earth. But, really, what was I worried about? People thinking that I was gay? Pretty silly, considering. I'd given up my political ambitions, and talking over from Bob wasn't going to involve many popularity contests. People who own billion-dollar companies are allowed to be eccentric. And as symbolism . . . 

"Then I'll just have to leave it in, won't I?" I said, and answered his smile with one of my own. 

_Do you believe yet, deep down inside, that I really meant it when I said "forever"? Geneus . . ._

The actual piercing was anticlimactic—pressure, and something that I experienced as much as heat as pain, and the ring being slipped through my ear and clamped shut with pliers. My hand didn't even clench around Geneus' fingers, although Yuuri, watching us, winced. When it was his turn, Geneus tensed slightly. That was all, that and a tiny tingle of healing majutsu and the least little weight hanging from my ear. And a flood of congratulations, most of them sounding a bit confused. And in the middle of it all, Geneus caressing me subtly with his maryoku until Little Shouri was so hard I was having a difficult time walking straight. I did my best to return the favour, but although I could sense the difference in his blood flow that went with getting an erection, he didn't display any _visible_ signs that my teasing was affecting him. Which was just unfair. 

Because the damned ball was in our honour, we had to stay until it broke up, at midnight, by which time I was having disturbing fantasies of dropping my pants and ravishing my new fiancé right there on the dance floor, in front of everyone. The only thing that kept me from doing it, really, was the thought of how it would traumatize Yuuri. 

As soon as we got the door to our bedroom shut behind us, I pushed Geneus up against it, hands fumbling at his tunic, but he detached my fingers almost instantly. 

"Regrettably, if you tear anything, we are not likely to be able to replace it here," Geneus said, and I grimaced, knowing that he was right: several of the Shinzoku nobles at the ball had been wearing mended clothes, even. I put my hands flat against the surface of the door instead, but I couldn't keep still. I ground my lower body against his as he worked on the little hooks holding that damnable tunic shut, and heard his breath catch. The glitter of his earring attracted my attention then, and I mouthed the earlobe gently, tasting metal and him, and feeling him shiver. 

"You love it, don't you?" I whispered. "The idea of being married to me." 

There was another one of those little shivers. "I do," came the soft, breathy response. "Some of the people I have been were wed, but never to someone who knew what I truly was. Even he never . . . You will be the first." 

"And the last," I told him as his tunic fell away, revealing pale skin, lean muscle, the old scar tracking down from his shoulder, and pert nipples the colour of sakura blossom. I bent to taste, and my growing familiarity with the flavour of his skin only increased my enjoyment. "One way or the other." 

He untied my hair, letting it fall loose around my shoulders. "You are quite mad . . . and I love you for it." His fingertips traced circular patterns on my scalp. 

I straightened up. I wanted to see his face when I said what I'd been thinking during those interminable hours at the edge of the dance floor. "That's good, because I want to be inside you tonight." 

I wasn't disappointed by the way his eyes widened slightly and his tongue slid out to trace a path along his lower lip. "I was starting to think you would never ask." Then he cupped his hands firmly on either side of my head to hold me in place for a kiss that melted my knees. 

The awkward, crablike walk to the bed, where we were both moving sideways so that we could see at least a little of what was ahead while still clinging to each other, leaving a trail of shed clothes behind us, was getting familiar now too. My ass tingled in anticipation, but _no, not tonight,_ I told it, not without a touch of regret. I loved being taken, feeling Geneus inside me, but some instinct had decided that it was his turn tonight, and I wasn't going to argue with it. 

We sat down facing each other on the thin mattress, Geneus with one leg folded neatly underneath him, and me with mine extended so that it curled loosely around him. We kissed again, deeply, as I unbraided his hair, running my fingers through it over and over again, the fine black silk catching on my calluses. He stroked my back, tracing my spine, and I arched into his touch like a cat. 

"We'd better get down to business before I explode," I said as we parted, pressing my forehead against his. "How do you want to . . . ?" 

"I want to see you," came the quiet reply. "I want to be certain that it _is_ you, and not . . . some phantom out of my past." A pause, and then the distinctly more practical remark, "We will need to use the oil Josak gave you for maintaining your sword, I think, since this room seems . . . slightly underequipped." 

Which meant that I had to leave the bed and fish through the baggage we'd brought from the ship. I found the oil, and turned to look at Geneus . . . and discovered him lying on his back, knees bent and legs spread, with everything on display: the hard shaft of Little Geneus, the swell of his balls, and the delicately pink pucker behind them. It was the same position he'd arranged me in the first time we'd made love, and I understood even better now why he'd done it. Little Shouri twitched hungrily, and I licked my lips. _First things first._ I coated two fingers with oil, and then bent to lick and gently nibble at those tempting balls as I slid one fingertip inside him. His breath caught, and he tensed for a moment, then relaxed so completely into my touch that my finger went deeper without me consciously pushing forward. He was still tight, though, gripping my finger with his body as I slid it in and out, going a bit deeper with each thrust until I was in all the way to the knuckle. Remembering what he had done our first time, I twisted my hand, feeling around until I was rewarded with a twitch of his cock and a soft, breathy cry. 

After that, I hit his prostate with every thrust of my fingers . . . well, almost every one. Sometimes I held off for one cycle, just to tease him. I licked the underside of his cock in apology as I added the second finger, tasting the droplets of fluid that had already leaked from it. Still not my favourite flavour, but bearable because it was him. More oil and another finger and— 

"Shouri. That is enough." And then, very softly, "Please . . ." 

He had never asked me for anything in bed before, especially not like that, with his voice trembling with emotion. Just the sound of it had me on the edge of coming, and I swallowed and tried not to handle Little Shouri too much as I slicked myself down with oil. I knelt on the mattress, the tip of my cock tracing a moist trail down from his balls as I settled myself into position. 

We both trembled as I pushed forward, me because he was hot and tight inside, tighter than any girl I had ever known, his muscles fluttering irregularly around me, and him . . . well, I could guess what he was feeling. His legs wrapped around my waist and held me there as I seated myself completely, and he reached up to caress my face with one hand, dark eyes glittering with heat. I was feeling a heaviness and molten heat in my balls, and I forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply. _Not yet . . . not until he's come . . ._

I rolled my hips slightly—he wasn't giving me a lot of space to work with—and again our gasps came almost in unison. Then I wrapped still-oily fingers around his cock and began to stroke. I wanted him to come first, but I knew I wasn't going to last much longer, not with Little Shouri sunk in such a tight, pulsing grip. 

His legs relaxed, uncoiling, and I pulled all the way out before slamming back into him, drawing a breathy moan from his lips. I could feel him shifting his position, curving his back, hands gripping my buttocks, but I didn't realize what he was really doing until I felt a well-oiled finger slide inside me as I began to withdraw again. Thrust-withdraw, and there were two fingers, stabbing unerringly at my prostate. I cried out and pushed forward, and the fingers followed me, rubbing soothingly at the inside of my body. _Too much, too much . . . Shin'ou! I'm going to . . ._ Geneus' body contracted around Little Shouri in rippling, squeezing pulses, and I groaned helplessly one more time and came inside him as his body milked me of every drop of semen. 

It was only after I'd ridden the wracking aftershocks back down that I realized that there was thick, milky liquid coating my hand—that somewhere in the middle of that, he'd come as well, so I hadn't failed him after all. 

"Shit," I muttered, body still bowed forward, over him. "That was . . ." _Intense_ didn't seem like a strong enough word. 

Geneus curled his body upward again to kiss me on the lips. "I fear that that first argument we have not had yet is likely to be about who will be privileged to be on the bottom on a given night," he said wryly. "Perhaps we should invest in some toys, to ensure that each of us has enough inside him to satisfy." 

_Dildos?_ Scary that I was actually considering it. "Two toys, maybe," I said, knowing that I was blushing. "Carefully sized to match, um . . . " I gestured down at Little Shouri. Weirdly romantic thought. 

He laughed, but I would swear that there was a hint of pink spreading across his cheekbones as well. "That is a fascinatingly appropriate idea. Perhaps we shall do just that."


	36. Interlude:  Night Terrors

He looks out onto the hard-packed soil of a dead garden, dimly lit by houseki lamps to aid the guards in their rounds, and wonders what in hell he is doing here. Not _here_ as in sitting on a window ledge in the Seisakokan royal palace wearing only his underwear, knees drawn up to his chest for warmth in the nighttime cool, but _here_ as in part of this insane trip at all. It isn't as though he's done anything useful since they left Shin Makoku . . . well, except shut Yuuri up a couple of times. For everything else, he's been pre-empted. Rather like having another actor suddenly steal your lines on the night of the play's premier, and use them for his own glory. 

"Ken-kun?" 

He blinks and raises his head. "Josak? What are you doing up so late?" 

"Scoping out the guards. I did the first watch last night, so I figured I should do the second one tonight, and the third one tomorrow. Kind of leisurely, but I do need _some_ sleep. What about you?" 

Murata shrugs. "Couldn't sleep." 

"Come to think of it, you must get the same nightmares that Geneus does—Oho, hit a nerve there, did I?" Josak says as he leans back comfortably against the wall. 

Murata turns his head to look out at the gardens again. "Tell me, Josak—if he's the Great Sage, then who am I?" Geneus must have asked the same question. These feelings now churning inside him explain so much about the other man, about his anger and hatred and despair. _Is this some kind of cosmic revenge for attempted murder?_

"You're Ken Murata. That's what you've always said, isn't it?" 

The chuckle is more like a gasp, and it hurts coming out. "That just shoves it back one more level, and it's turtles all the way down. Who is Ken Murata? Who would he have been, if his life hadn't been gutted by these terrible memories? I would say it was like losing myself, but you can't lose something you've never had, can you? I can't seem to move forward into a world that doesn't need those memories, but at the same time I can't go back the way he has. That man . . . Whatever name he might use, there's nothing of Geneus in him anymore. He _is_ the Great Sage, and he's happy. And I'm left twisting in the wind." 

He's coming to realize that it's all about identity, the identity he stole from Geneus and that the other is now stealing from him in turn. _Spirits,_ it hurts so much, an aching, gnawing pain that isn't susceptible to aspirin . . . No wonder Geneus is still so damned touchy, because even the phantom memory of this . . . 

"I don't have a family," Murata says softly, nose pressed against his knee. "I haven't seen either of my parents in more than a month, Earth time, and that's pretty normal for us—I make them nervous, so they make excuses to stay away. I don't even really have friends. Just Shibuya . . . and you, I guess. And Shin'ou, but he doesn't really count, since it isn't me that he sees. Everyone in my life right now is there because of the Boxes, and duty. No choice, no room for self-expression . . . Geneus was right: I'm a dead man, a psychological suicide lurching around like a zombie because my body hasn't quite gotten the message yet." 

"Whoo, boy," Josak says. "If you were the captain, I'd haul you off to crack a bottle about now, and then get you too sauced to stand up straight . . . but they don't seem to have a hell of a lot of booze around here, and anyway, with a body like yours the line between 'sauced' and 'out cold''s probably pretty narrow. You don't have any meat on you at all." 

Murata snorts. "Now you sound like Shibuya's mother. She keeps on trying to stuff me with curry—that's a kind of spicy stew—whenever I visit their family." 

"So you've got more than just three people that care about you." 

That brings him up short, because Miko Shibuya's absence from his previous list indicates that he's placed her in some category other than "friend", and he isn't sure what it would be. It takes him a while to realize that he's filed her under "forces of nature", and that almost makes him laugh. Granted, Miko is odd, but . . . 

"That's better," Josak says in satisfaction. 

"What?" 

"You smiled. I was starting to get kind of worried." 

"Sorry." 

Josak sighs. "Y'know, you may have met me because of the boxes and your duty—and the boyo, too—but that isn't why we hang out with you. We do it 'cause we _like_ you. And to be honest, if the Original Sage was much like Geneus . . . I'd rather have Ken Murata. You know how to laugh." 

_Ken, what you remember isn't you._ How many times had José said that to him as a child? How many _hundreds_ of times, he corrects himself ruefully. It's just that it's worse at night. It's so easy to lose his way when he's alone in the dark with the nightmares snapping at his heels, to forget when/where/who he is and be sucked down into the tatters of an old persona, one that never found a balance point between self and memory. 

"Sometimes it's easy for me to worry about the wrong things," he says with a crooked grin. "Too many memories, and it's always easier to call up the ones that match my mood, even if my mood is crappy. Maybe especially if it's crappy. It gets kind of noisy in here sometimes," he adds, tapping his forehead. "I think the problem this time is that I don't have enough to do. Research can't occupy more than part of my mind, and Geneus is taking up the slack a little too well. And I'm not used to having him there, butting in. We'll probably find some kind of balance eventually, but my guess is it's going to take a while." 

Josak snorts. "What do you do during all those days you're up at the temple?" 

"Hard labour," Murata replies promptly. "Minor repairs, cleaning drains, that sort of stuff. Things that the priestesses _could_ do for themselves, but they prefer to dump it all on me. When I'm not plastering walls and hauling furniture, I'm either in the library or trying to stop Shin'ou from messing with someone's head. Again." 

"If you just need stuff to keep you busy, how are you on finding secret passageways?" 

Murata blinks at the sudden change of subject. "Secret . . . A bit better than average, I guess. You mostly have to spend a lot of time measuring, then poking at stationary objects around where you figure the end has to be. Why?" 

"Ghosts," Josak says with a grin. 

"Well, don't tell Shouri—he's terrified of them. And I don't think ghosts need to use secret passageways." Not that he's ever actually _seen_ a ghost, unless you count Shin'ou—he's pretty sure they don't really exist. But he'll never tell Shouri that, because winding him up is just too much fun. 

"No, but people pretending to be ghosts do. I've heard nearly a dozen servants so far claim that the palace is haunted. The ones I asked about it always mentioned the same place—the ground floor of the royal wing—and said that the ghost looks an awful lot like Lord Calmeth, who _technically_ isn't supposed to enter the king's private rooms, which is what most of the ground floor of that wing is." 

Murata cocks his head to one side. "And just how do you expect me to get in there if you can't?" 

"By getting Yelshi to invite you. Sneaking in gives me a good chance of getting filleted—the guards there aren't as lax as they are in the rest of this place. Seisakoku may not do invading armies, but from what I hear it _does_ do assassins." 

"You think that's where the sword is." 

"I've checked pretty much everywhere else. You said that Yelshi said he didn't know where it was being kept, which means it isn't in the royal wing, and probably not in the treasury, either. If it's in the building, a hidden room is about all that's left. Y'know, I've been wondering—what are we going to do with it if we find it? It isn't like _we_ need it." 

"Shibuya wants to hand it over to Alazon, since she was the one who found it and was _supposed_ to bring it back. All part of that obsession of his with justice." 

"And what do _you_ want to do?" Josak asks shrewdly. 

"I'm actually with Shibuya on this one. We need to get the sword up and running again as soon as possible. There's still something here, and I think it's on the edge of breaking loose. The sword should tamp it down again, at least for a while." 

Josak whistles. "I didn't think it was that bad." 

"Oh, believe me, it is." _How do I get Yelshi to give me free access to his rooms?_ It's a simple problem, but one that will keep his mind just busy enough to keep the night terrors away. Maybe he'll get some sleep tonight after all. "Thanks, Josak." 

"No problem. Get to bed before you freeze, m'kay? Or I'll ask Geneus to look after you when you catch cold." 

Murata hides the wince as Josak grins, waves, and heads off down the hallway. He can imagine being looked after by Geneus all too easily, being flayed by the man's sometimes-cutting tongue and dosed with grethig root tea, which is vomitously vile. 

"I have a funny feeling he'd treat me like I used to treat Shin'ou," he mutters, but his mouth curves into an involuntary smile. Now that the dark cloud has lifted, he can see the humour in it—he treats Yuuri as his brother, which means Shouri kind of is too, and you aren't _supposed_ to like your in-laws.


	37. Chapter 29

We went through three more interminable days of pre-negotiations, arguing about trivia until I was sweaty and exhausted and feeling houseki and miasma pressing in on me from all sides. Geneus had to break the link between me and Vetruan's dying curse a dozen more times, but we never got any information from it. 

We never had a chance to speak with Yelshi alone, and only seldom saw the other members of our party . . . although Josak made a point of slipping into our room just before supper in the evening and giving us something that might have been called a report. Not that what he'd had to say had been worth much so far: _No, we haven't found the sword. Alazon's under what amounts to house arrest, and she doesn't seem to be in any hurry to take action. Neither do the court factions. Ken-kun says he hasn't found anything trustworthy about the origins of the sword in the library, or anything much at all that's provably more than a thousand years old. Yelshi's tried to get in here twice, but Calmeth's blocked him both times._

I woke on the fourth morning still feeling tired. Geneus' body was coiled around mine, and a shaft of sunlight from the window fell across his jaw and shoulder, giving me a good look at that porcelain skin. I smiled without even meaning to. He was so beautiful and brilliant, and he was mine absolutely and I never got tired of looking at him . . . or talking with him or cuddling him or making love to him. _I don't know how I ever lived without you._

His eyes flickered open, and he bid me good morning with a smile, a kiss, and a maryoku caress. Then he glanced out the window, and his eyebrows rose. 

"It is rather late. I wonder why they sent no one to wake us . . . ?" 

I sighed. "I suppose we'd better get dressed and go find out." Really, though, I'd rather just have stayed in bed. All day, even, sleeping and lazily making love to my fiancé . . . As always when the word crossed my mind, my hand drifted up to touch my earring as my eyes found Geneus' matching one. The idea that we were going to be _married_ was still startling and not quite _real_ , but at the same time, it made me happier than I'd ever thought I could be. 

He kissed me again. "Alas, duty calls." 

"Yeah." 

I had a clean shirt to put on, at least, courtesy of the surgeon who hadn't made it aboard the _Swift_ in Small Cimaron, and the palace's efficient laundry service. I didn't bother with my jacket—the heavy wool was uncomfortable in this weather. Next time we went on a trip like this, I was going to make sure that my wardrobe included something tropical-weight. 

Once we were both something approaching decent, I opened the door to the hallway and poked my head out. 

There was a naked man with a tattooed face standing in the hall right outside our door. Startled, I jerked back. 

Instantly, the stranger dropped to his knees and performed a full kowtow, pressing his forehead to the floor. I'd never seen such a thing outside of a movie. 

"A thousand pardons, my lords," he said, holding that position. "I was commanded to inform you that Lord Calmeth will be unable to speak with you today. He apologizes most profusely, but an emergency has come up in the western provinces that requires his intervention as regent." 

I chose my answer carefully. "The needs of the country naturally have to come first." 

"Thank you, my lords." 

Geneus' hand came to rest on my shoulder. "You may go," my lover said, and the stranger contorted his back in an apparent attempt to bow lower as Geneus steered me back inside our room. 

"What is it?" I asked softly, once the door was shut and we were alone in the sitting room that formed the front part of our suite. 

"Politics," Geneus murmured. "I am not absolutely certain, you understand, but from certain things that Alazon said in my presence, I believe that sending a slave as a messenger, rather than a freeborn servant, is considered an insult of sorts in Seisakoku." 

"Then sending you to Lanzhil with those marks on your face . . ." 

"Was a subtle indication of what she truly thought of him, yes." 

I cupped my hand against his jaw, and kissed the unmarked skin below one eye. Thank Shin'ou we'd gotten those damned purple things off him when we had. I'd probably have ended up blowing half this country into mincemeat and rock dust, trying to protect him. His arm slid around my shoulders, hugging me close. 

"The question is," I said slowly, and not before thinking longingly of the bed we'd just gotten out of, "why would Calmeth want to insult us? Is this some kind of test? Why now?" Suddenly, despite the warmth of the room, I felt cold. "You don't think he's figured out who Yuuri is, do you?" 

"I doubt it. Normally your brother's lack of regality irks me a bit, but in this case it may save his life." 

"How was Shin'ou at being regal?" The question suddenly popped into my head, and I let it out, since I couldn't see what harm it could do. 

Geneus smiled nostalgically. "In public, he played the part very well, when he wanted to. In private . . ." 

"He played stupid pranks and blamed them on crystal-spitting beetles," I said. 

"Exactly. Underneath it all, he was an overgrown child in many ways." 

"And me?" 

His smile changed subtly—warmer, slightly wry. "You are youthful still, but you have never struck me as childish, and since we first met, you have grown immensely. You have great intelligence, strength, and kindness, all woven together, and I am proud that you have chosen to stand beside me." 

I was blushing, I knew it. I could feel the heat in my face. 

"Well, since we have the day off, what do you think we should do?" I asked, trying to hide my embarrassment. 

Geneus' smile faded, and he became all business. "Explore the palace." 

"And look for the old third wine cellar?" 

"I doubt it will be recognizable after so many years, but it can do no harm to search. More practically, the miasma must have a source somewhere." 

I wrinkled my nose. Looking for the places where the darkness was thickest wasn't going to be much fun, but I knew Geneus was right. We needed to find the other Originators before more of them broke loose, and it was beginning to look like we were the only ones that could do it. 

"I guess that means we're tracking dogs today," I said. "Let's go." 

The Seisakokan palace was huge—bigger than Blood Pledge Castle. Hell, bigger than the Mall of the Americas, I think, where I'd gotten lost when I was not-quite-seven. Even worse, there wasn't much to differentiate most of the hallways from each other. The wider ones had mosaic floor borders, but even those were laid out in simple geometric patterns that repeated endlessly, and the other decorations ran to abstract statues and empty vases, most of which I didn't find very distinctive. 

We could have asked for directions if we'd wanted to get to somewhere specific, of course, since the building was far from uninhabited. People stared at us as we passed. Well, they would. No one else I'd seen here yet had hair darker than Conrad's. 

The miasma felt like it was coming from below, but locating a staircase to the basement was more difficult than I would have expected. We must have walked a couple of kilometers of hallway without seeing a single one. 

We found an odd little not-room, a square bordered by four hallways and delineated with pillars, with stone benches around the edges and a magnificent mosaic floor depicting a ship racing before a storm at sea, and, by mutual, unspoken agreement, we sat down. I slid my arm around Geneus' waist, and he leaned against my shoulder, and we both sighed. 

"I believe we will have to try the servants' corridors," Geneus began, but then he fell silent again. I was about to ask him a question when I heard the sound of footsteps against stone. No, better that no one overhear what we might have to say. 

" . . . not really that good at it, Yelshi-sama," came a familiar voice, and I blinked. What was _Murata_ , of all people, doing with Yelshi? I'd thought he was still rummaging through the library. 

"Don't give me that, Ken-kun—judging from what I've seen so far, you're good at everything." 

"You haven't seen me try to run or jump or throw a ball, though. I'm not really very athletic." 

Yelshi made a distinctly unregal snorting noise. "You can't have spent all your spare time learning to read Ancient Sharbesian." 

Murata chuckled. "No, I write poetry, too, although most of it isn't very good. Sometimes I draw. And . . ." 

Sudden silence, which went on for several seconds before I just couldn't take it anymore. I invoked wind majutsu and wrapped myself in an invisibility illusion—probably not a very good one, but whatever Yelshi and Murata ended up seeing at least wouldn't look much like me—and leaned around a pillar so that I could see down the hallway. 

Some ten metres away, Yelshi stood with his back to the wall. Murata's hands were flat against that wall on either side of the blonde boy's shoulders, and he had Yelshi in a lip-lock that, during the few seconds I watched them, looked like it was going to suck his soul out. 

Somehow I managed to get myself behind the pillar again without falling on the floor or letting go of the illusion before I was sure I was out of sight. Geneus gave me a concerned look and leaned in to whisper in my ear. 

"Shouri, what is wrong?" 

"They're kissing," I whispered back, and saw my fiancé blink several times, as non-plussed as I was. 

It just didn't make _sense_. I was pretty damned sure that Murata, whatever his past-life experiences might have been like, was straight as an arrow, and he'd never displayed even a passing interest in Saralegui, so why was he suddenly getting it on with his identical twin? Unless . . . this wasn't about romance or sex, but about getting on Yelshi's good side. Yeah, that made sense, although it seemed kind of an extreme way of going about it to me. 

"You're . . . really good at that, too," Yelshi said breathlessly. 

"Really? I thought I might be losing my touch. I haven't been getting much practice lately." I could see Murata's smile in my mind's eye. It was one of the ones he shared with Geneus, crooked and knowing. 

"This feels so strange. I've never been courted by a man before." 

"It isn't illegal here or anything, is it? I don't want to cause you trouble." 

A huff of breath. "No, there's no law against it. It . . . just isn't done. Or it wasn't, until Lord Shouri and Lord Geneus came along. Is it really legal for two men to _marry_ , in Shin Makoku?" 

"Pretty much anyone can marry in Shin Makoku, actually. Two men, two woman, a woman and a man, even more than two people—although that doesn't come up very often. The only people it's illegal to marry are your blood ancestors or descendants—your mother, your son, your grandfather, and so on." 

"Your brothers and sisters . . . ?" 

"Perfectly legal, but like group marriages, it doesn't happen very often and tends to cause a minor scandal. Overall, we prefer to be honest about our feelings." 

"Oh." A brief pause. "I . . . don't know if I'm really interested in you this way, Ken-kun, but I do know that you're like no one else I've ever known." 

"Well, then. Why don't we go back to your rooms? We can talk, and maybe play a round of zhiba. I don't want to rush you into anything you're going to regret." 

"Good. That's good. I . . . um . . ." 

"Hmm?" 

"Nothing. Let's go." 

Receding footsteps. I half-listened to them fade as things flipped over in my head. Some of them were just culture shock—incestuous group marriages? _Really?_ Although a skilled healer would be able to run a genetic test on any resulting fetus, to identify the parents and check for abnormalities, so the risks were less than they would be on Earth. It was pretty startling how advanced the Mazoku were in some areas of science, although it didn't usually seem to translate into practical engineering solutions for some reason . . . 

I shook my head. That wasn't the important part. Why did Murata want to get into Yelshi's rooms so badly that he'd be willing to let the young king get into his pants? He'd been _supposed_ to be researching history . . . 

"He believes the sword is there," Geneus said. 

Well, it was a better explanation than I would have come up with, anyway. I brushed aside the first question— _How can you be sure? Because it's something you might have done if your circumstances were the same, probably_ —and tried for a more important one instead. "Does that mean Yelshi lied to us about not knowing where the sword was?" 

My fiancé shook his head. "More likely, Calmeth concealed it in some out-of-the-way corner that he knew Yelshi was unlikely to visit, so as to have it near at hand if he manages to persuade his charge to use it. I have no doubt that . . . Murata . . . will inform us of what he finds at the earliest opportunity. In the meanwhile, we have other business." 

I let myself sigh. "Yeah. We passed something narrow enough to be a service corridor a couple of minutes back—let's see if it leads us to some stairs." 

That one didn't—instead, it took a sharp turn to the right and dead-ended in a very large linen closet. We returned to the main hallway and took several turnings at random before finding another narrow corridor . . . which led to a sort of garbage dump of broken pottery in a small courtyard with featureless walls. The disappointments irritated me, and when we found a third narrow hall, I pretty much power-walked down it, with Geneus trailing behind. That one dead-ended at a stairway going _up_. 

"I give up," I said, shooting an evil look at the steep stairs. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that someone was trying to keep us from finding the basement." 

"Perhaps they are," Geneus said thoughtfully. "If the emotions of those who died there seeped into the stone, bound in place by wind and earth, the old cellar might be a very uncomfortable place to be. In which case it may have been closed up at some point." 

"Great. So what do we do now? The entrance could have been anywhere." 

"I take it that you cannot sense it." 

"Sense what?" I felt around, but there was too much miasma and too much houjutsu for me to be certain of anything but us and the stone of the floor directly beneath our feet. 

"There is a houjutsu aversion spell on something under those stairs. Very old and very powerful—I am having a difficult time even bringing myself to look at it, but it appears to be hiding a door." 

He was right: my eyes seemed to be sliding away from the shadows under the stairs. I gritted my teeth, grabbed my head with both hands to keep myself from turning it, and forced myself to keep looking in that direction, fighting the impulse to close my eyes. Something rectangular slowly came clear under the heat-haze shimmer. 

"I can't see it well enough to tell if there's a handle," I said. 

"Nor can I, but there is a way of bypassing the problem." Geneus closed his eyes and took two steps forward, arm outstretched, until his fingers touched the indistinct wall shadowed by the flight of stairs. Then he felt along it and down. "There is a handle, but from what I can sense behind it, the workings of the latch have fused. I will have to break it, I fear." 

"Wait!" I said sharply. "Doesn't this strike you as . . . improbably convenient?" 

"If you are saying that you doubt it is coincidence that we found this place, I know that it is not—the curse-thread drew you back here, although you may not have been aware of it. But I nonetheless think it best to spring the trap, for trap it almost certainly is. The souls trapped in this place recognize us as kin—living kin who did not come to their rescue." 

I winced, remembering the woman who had formed the core of the Originator we'd fought in Cimaron. _Traitor,_ she had called me over and over again. But I had nevertheless promised her . . . 

"Break it," I said, forcing the fear away. "I have to . . . _we_ have to know what's in there, so there's no point in delaying the inevitable." 

"I agree." There was a chiming, metallic _crack_ and a sound like the hinges of the gate to hell squealing open . . . and then the heat-haze shimmer was gone, and I was staring past Geneus' shoulder at a dark opening. 

My fiancé conjured a ball of flame which hovered above us as we cautiously entered the dusty space. The dust was ridiculous, really, almost ankle-deep, with hidden crunchy things among the layers which I identified as dead bugs when we'd gotten about twenty meters in. I had to cover my face with my sleeve to keep from coughing. 

At length we came to a door that must have been positively ancient, because it was the first wooden door of any sort that I'd seen in Seisakoku . . . although I didn't recognize it as such at first, because it was black. And not with age, either. When I pressed my hand against it and extended my focus into it, I could feel that it had been charred. There were traces of ancient majutsu clinging to it too, and I felt something cold slide down my spine. 

Its latch was fused as well, but Geneus' earth majutsu soon had it open, and we stepped through it into a huge room. Generations of spiders had lived and died in the corners of the ceiling, and the main entrance, which must have been quite wide once, had been filled with a plug of masonry whose stonework didn't quite match the rest of the walls—the blocks were too small and too pinkish. But still, there was something oddly familiar about this place . . . 

A sharp pain shot through my head and I cursed thickly, holding my temples. 

"Shouri? Are you well?" 

"This is . . ." I scuffed my foot across the floor, found the stone underneath the dust mottled with more ancient dark char-marks, uncannily distinct despite being thousands of years old. "This is . . . where he . . . The knife . . ." _Shin'ou_ , my head hurt so much that it was difficult to think . . . I tried to heal myself, but the warmth of healing maryoku brought no relief, and I couldn't hold onto it for more than a few seconds anyway. 

Then wind majutsu gathered around me, and there was a familiar internal _twang_ mingled with a crystalline chiming sound, and the headache vanished. So, in my perceptions, did most of the room. Only myself, Geneus, and a small patch of stone flooring remained reachable with my maryoku. 

My fiancé was looking at me with deep concern, and I forced myself to smile. "I'm okay now. Thanks. Was that . . . the emotions soaked into the stones?" 

Geneus grimaced. "Yes, intensified by Vetruan's dying curse and your incomplete defenses—what barriers you have acted to concentrate the darkness inside you, rather than keep it out of you. We are going to beg off from Calmeth tomorrow, if he returns, for an intensive lesson on shielding techniques." 

"That's probably a good idea," I admitted. Then, more softly, "I'm sorry. You must get tired of looking after me sometimes." 

"I have no doubt that looking after me can be equally exhausting," Geneus said, raising a hand to caress my face. "That is how it is supposed to be, is it not? The two of us supporting each other and compensating for each other's weaknesses?" 

"Yeah." I wrapped my arms around him and we hugged, right there in the middle of the abandoned room. 

"I guess we should try to follow their trail out of here," I said. "The door they used was on the other side of the room, wasn't it?" 

There turned out not to be a door anymore—the wood hadn't been as sturdy as that of the other one, and it had crumbled into a pile of dust and fragments lying across the doorway. Retracing Vetruan's path through the tangle of narrow hallways on the other side was difficult. Even if everything hadn't looked completely different, deep in dust and cobwebs as it was, the dying Soukoku hadn't been paying that much attention to where they were going. Twice we hit dead-end corridors whose former exits had been sealed with stone and mortar. Fortunately, they were both wrong turns, but I always had the nervous feeling that sooner or later, one of them wouldn't be. The fact that the wind-wall Geneus had created was still locking me inside a narrow cylinder of perception just made it worse. Not being able to sense what was behind me was making the back of my neck crawl as though I'd gotten infested by a whole hill of ants. 

It hadn't been quite a month since I'd started learning about my extended senses, and I was already dependent on them. I told myself repeatedly that this was just a temporary thing, like a blindfold. You can see again once a blindfold's taken off, and in the meanwhile I was being guided along by someone I trusted deeply. 

Maybe it was the thought of blindfolds that made me reach for Geneus' hand—I mean, that's how you'd normally guide a blindfolded person along, right? By holding their hand. It wasn't because the dark and the cobwebs and the general haunted-house feel of these empty halls were making me think of ghosts. Of course not. Besides, I was twenty, not two. Grown men weren't supposed to get scared of silly stuff like that. No, I wasn't squeezing Geneus' fingers so tightly because I needed reassurance . . . 

And then something shot out of the darkness up ahead and hit me in the face, and I screamed like a coed in an old monster movie. There were things moving, chittering and rushing sounds, and I threw wind at them, but it didn't seem to do anything and they were _still there_ and— 

Geneus pushed me up against a wall and covered my body with his. "Bats, Shouri. Only bats, stirred up by the light. Nothing to fear. Shhh." 

Bats? 

For a moment, I was relieved, and then I felt tears of shame prickling at my eyes. I'd just about wet myself in terror because of a bunch of mice with wings. I didn't think I'd ever been so embarrassed in my life . . . well, except when I'd utterly failed that stupid Test of Courage in middle school by falling down a flight of stairs and nearly breaking my neck when one of the upperclassmen had jumped out at me dressed in a sheet. But that hadn't been in front of Geneus. If he broke off the engagement because I was a cowardly, useless— 

"It is natural to fear the dark and the unknown," Geneus said softly. "It is a terror that we carry with us from cradle to grave. I do not think less of you for harbouring it . . . and if not for the wind-wall, you would have known that we were facing flesh and blood, and not spirits. Calm yourself now, so that we can continue . . . although I hope that the bats have not been nesting below. I have no desire to wade through guano." 

"We could get Yelshi to lend us some people with shovels, if it's really that bad," I suggested. My heart rate was slowly returning to normal, but my knees were shaky from the loss of adrenaline. 

"Only if we are willing to let them see whatever may be there," Geneus pointed out. 

"At that point, I'd be willing to take the risk," I said, forcing some stiffness into my legs. "Let's get this over with." 

We found the old third wine cellar about ten minutes later. The formerly-secret door that had led further down was open, and the dust showed that it had been that way for a long, long time. The air was unnaturally still, and I was willing to bet that if the wind-wall hadn't been protecting me, I would have found the miasma chokingly thick. Geneus looked like he was having trouble breathing. 

The dust-layer wasn't quite level. Two odd rows of double indentations had joined our path a turning back, just after the bats, and they continued on into the room and through the not-so-secret door. 

"Someone was here," Geneus observed quietly. "Not recently, but long after this area was sealed up." 

"Four hundred years ago?" 

"I would not wager against it." 

The pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together, and I _really_ didn't like the picture on the box. Or the smell that was wafting through the open door, which was putrid. 

"Is that bat guano?" I asked, wrinkling my nose. 

"In part, I think, but there is something else as well. Rotting meat. It may just be dead bats." 

"Don't try to reassure me," I said. "We both know that the first Yelshi wouldn't have left this place unguarded." It was exactly the kind of place you'd find a boss monster in an RPG, although I hadn't played one of those since I was a little kid. 

"Any living guardian would have died long ago. There may be a few traps, but I believe they felt that their best hope lay in concealment." 

"What about s-spirits?" I stammered, just a little, as the word passed my lips. _Ghosts . . . Please, no ghosts . . ._

"That does worry me," came the grim admission. "There must have been some reason for them to bar this area so thoroughly—it cannot have been miasma and psychometric echoes alone, since those can be shielded against with houjutsu as easily as with majutsu. But there is no sign that they made any attempt at all at a cleansing. Instead, they stripped the rooms and halls, walled up what must be a fair portion of the ground floor of the central palace, and left it to rot while they continued to use the rest of the building. Asinine on the face of it, and while Yelshi-the-Elder did remind me somewhat of Lanzhil, that would only make him vicious, not mad. There is something here, something that they could not move or more easily conceal. It may not be dangerous to us, especially after so long, but I do not deny it is a risk. If you wish to turn back and inform the others, I will quite happily go with you." 

I licked my lips. "No," I said firmly. "If we turn back now, Yuuri'll probably insist on tagging along on the next expedition, and that's the last thing I want. We go forward . . . carefully. I don't want to risk losing you, either." 

"And I have no intention of being lost," Geneus said. He formed a second ball of flame and sent it on ahead, giving us a better view of the narrow, dusty flight of stairs that led down into the darkness below. 

We didn't speak as we climbed down. I don't know about my fiancé, but I couldn't bring myself to disturb the silence. There was something oppressive about this place even with the wind-wall theoretically cutting me off from any supernatural influences. And I wanted to breathe as little as possible, because the smell was on the verge of making me gag. I could probably have sent some of it away with wind majutsu, but I didn't want to waste my maryoku, not under these circumstances. So I covered my face with one dusty shirtsleeve, and suffered. 

The floor at the bottom of the stairs was uneven. We were in a cave—a limestone cave, even, judging from the stalactites and whatnot, although the water that had formed it had long since disappeared and left the place bone-dry. 

"'And until the last vile carcass is added to the pile before the walls of the city, this land will suffer for it,'" I whispered, and Geneus nodded. No fresh water meant no farms or forests, just desert as far as the eye could see. Even the rain clouds were probably directed away, out over the ocean. Houjutsu devices might provide for the water needs of the palace and even the city, but those were far, far less than would be needed for large-scale irrigation. A simple, ugly curse that the rulers of this land had fought for millennia, but never put to rest. 

"The vaults are over there, I think," Geneus said, gesturing in the direction of a path where the stalagmites had been snapped off, leaving low, rounded bumps on the floor. The stony growths to either side had been defaced as well, with openings roughly chiseled into them that must once have held the houseki I'd seen in that dream. 

We followed it. It split several times, but my fuzzy memory suggested that the men carrying Vetruan had gone straight ahead, without turning. And the miasma, now visible as a cloying black cloud, was thicker in that direction. I was a little surprised when Geneus extended the wind-wall around me to cover himself . . . but only a little. With the evil that thick and that heavy, holding it at bay was more important than being able to sense what was ahead. 

It felt like we were walking in a bubble. The light from the ball of flame hovering above us dropped off half a meter outside the wind-wall, leaving everything beyond black as pitch. This was _worse_ than what had been inside Shin'ou's temple when all the boxes had been gathered—the opaque miasma had been confined to a small area there, instead of sprawling I didn't know how far. Now and again, shapes would appear in the writhing darkness, distorted faces and figures, slumped in despair or beckoning us or just smiling toothily. Geneus ignored them, and I tried to do so as well, but it was disturbingly spooky. My grip on him—we'd been holding hands ever since the bats—tightened involuntarily with each apparition, and only relaxed again when he squeezed back. 

We passed through a dimly-seen arch, and the darkness thinned . . . but not because it was weaker here. I could tell. No, it thinned because it wanted us to see. See the skeleton laid out on the table, bones gleaming bizarrely black. See the golden frame of the throne standing in the corner with the rusty remains of a barbed short sword lying on its seat. See the seven jars lined up in a row on a shelf, one shattered, one cracked, and one lying open with its stopper beside it. See the shadow-enwrapped blade in the skeleton's hand as it slowly sat up. 

"Vetruan," Geneus greeted it. I didn't say anything—I was concentrating too hard on not wetting myself, because _this_ was a ghost. The real thing. 

_Traitors and sons of traitors._ It wasn't really a voice, more a ripple of the energies in the room that reached us even through the wind-wall. _How dare you approach this place?_


	38. Chapter 30

I licked my lips and addressed myself to the figure of black bone. "I promised your wife that I would set things right—as much as they can be set right after five thousand years, with those that hurt you long dead." The _your wife_ part was just a guess, since I wasn't sure what the corpse I'd seen in his nightmare-memory would have looked like when she was still alive, but it _felt_ right. 

_Dead? It that what you truly think?_ Derisive laughter filled the room. _That blonde filth did not intend to ever die, and I have not seen his soul return to the river to be cleansed. He lives. Somewhere, somehow._

"Then I'm going to find him and bring him to justice," I said firmly. 

_You? You are barely more than a boy. Not even half-trained._

I forced myself to stare the skull in the eye sockets. "And how much help would that training be to me in trying to find Yelshi's soul?" 

_You . . ._ A long pause, followed by something my mind interpreted as a snort. _You believe that you can find him, where I have failed to do so, all these long years since I escaped the prison he meant for me? You certainly have a great deal of gall. But perhaps I will give you a chance. Take this._

Black bony hands slowly turned the sword wrapped in dark malice, offering me the hilt. I gritted my teeth and reached out to accept it, finding it disturbingly warm to the touch, as though Vetruan's _living_ hand had been gripping it mere seconds ago. 

_Tessen is the vessel of my consciousness,_ the dark voice murmured. _I will be with you as you search . . . and if you do not find him, you will both die a traitor's death._

Looking into those damned empty sockets was easier this time, probably because I was pissed off. "You don't need to threaten me. I already told you that I made a promise to set this right. I'm not going to abandon it just because things are getting a bit more difficult than I expected. I'll find the bastard, even if it takes me a hundred years." 

_That confidence will be your undoing one day, as it was mine._

"But not today," I said. 

_Clearly not. That would be a waste of effort._ Energies surged and rippled as the skeleton laid back on its bier. The darkness in the room thickened, condensed, and pulled itself into the sword, which emitted a baleful red glow, like the inside of an incinerator, for a moment before subsiding. 

The room somehow managed to look smaller when it wasn't packed with the all-encompassing miasma. Smaller, shabbier . . . emptier, but that at least made sense. Empty even to my maryoku senses, as Geneus dissipated the wind-wall. Even the rotting-meat smell was gone. The black skeleton was just as spooky as ever, though. 

"I'm glad he didn't get up," I said. "If he'd taken even one step toward us, I'm pretty sure I would have freaked out." 

"I doubt he could have," Geneus said quietly. "Look at the legs of the skeleton." 

I looked, and immediately winced. How many pieces was that one bone in? I wasn't quite sure, but it had to be more than a dozen, and I was willing to bet that it had been broken while he was still alive. 

"The more I learn about the first Yelshi, the less I like him," I said. "And I didn't think it was _possible_ for me to like him any less." 

"Nor did I think it was possible for me to make common cause with an Originator," Geneus said. "This has truly been a day of . . . upsets." 

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't even think about that. I didn't mean to hurt you." 

My fiancé shook his head. "No, you did the right thing, although it is a bitter pill for me to swallow. The Yelshi of five thousand years ago seems to have been as evil a man as I have ever encountered . . . and with his confederates dead and the records lost, he is the only one remaining who would have any idea of how to make _another_ Originator. I think we both agree that that must be avoided at all cost. Furthermore, although Vetruan may be vindictive—and with good reason—he seems to have retained more of his true self than the others we have encountered, perhaps because he was able to copy the patterns of his mind into the maseki making up that sword." 

I held up Tessen for a closer examination. It really didn't look like a normal sword, or at least not like the one riding at my hip. It wasn't just that the blade was jet black—that might have been the miasma. What was more bizarre was the shape of that blade. The sword I'd gotten in Shin Makoku had a diamond-shaped cross-section, and the replica katana I'd once handled during a school trip to a museum had been flatter but generally similar once you allowed for it having only one edge, but Tessen's blade had a curved cross-section that resembled the drawings of lenses in my high school physics text. Its point also narrowed much more gradually than I would have expected. Most bizarrely, it had no real edge, no cutting surface, and clearly never had had. Even the point was blunt. 

"It is a tool for channeling and controlling majutsu, not a physical weapon, despite its form," Geneus said. "I would not attempt to block a blow with it. If not infused with power at the time, it would probably shatter." 

"Great," I said. _My very own inferior pseudo-Morgif. Infused with the spirit of a dead man who insults me, instead of just moaning and making kissy-faces at the maids._ "So now I get to carry two swords around. Except that if I put this one through my belt, the point's going to drag on the ground." Tessen was much longer than my other sword, a good four feet, with a short, one-handed hilt. It also weighed a lot less than the steel weapon, but that didn't make it any less awkward. 

"We will need to find you a back-harness for it, I think. However, at the moment I am more interested in how we may safely carry those, if they can be moved at all." Geneus nodded toward the row of dust-covered jars ensconced on the shelf on the far wall. "I would prefer to have them where they can be watched." 

We approached the containers together. Ordinary-looking jars, with a glossy brown finish and some kind of reddish stuff painted over the gap between the jar proper and the lid. 

Geneus lifted the shattered one down first, piece by piece, arranging the broken bits methodically on the end of the table beside Vetruan's skull. "Thrown on a wheel, and glazed with salt to give it additional strength for holding spirits," he said thoughtfully. "I do not recognize all the components of the substance used to seal it, however. Either they have been transformed with age, in which case I fear for the other seals, or something was added which existed only in Seisakoku." And which might not still exist in Seisakoku . . . but we both knew that. "This was Vetruan's prison, I believe—it still holds a hint of his spirit." 

He lifted down the cracked jar next, the one that had its seal still intact, but was missing a piece of its side. "And this one . . . feels altogether too familiar." I extended my focus, and grimaced agreement as my power touched the faint residue hovering about the jar: it felt like the darkness that had been in the Boxes. "I think the vessel was damaged by impact when Vetruan escaped. We are fortunate that it was the only one . . . I never thought I would be expressing such a sentiment in connection with that war, either." 

The open jar was next, and as he lifted it down, I picked up the lid that had been sitting beside it. I recognized the spirit residue on this one, too, from a recent encounter in Cimaron. 

Geneus reached for one of the intact jars, but stopped with his hand resting against the curve of its side, without lifting it down. He lowered his arm and picked up the intact-but-empty jar again, examining its lip minutely. Then he shook his head. 

"I do not believe we can safely transport these. The seals are old and brittle, and if one should crack . . ." He didn't have to finish the sentence. We both knew what the consequences would be. 

I set the lid down beside its jar and reached out to touch one of the intact ones myself. 

It was like what I imagined dipping my hand in liquid nitrogen would be like, burning cold . . . burning _hate_ . . . I jerked back involuntarily and cradled my hand to my chest. 

"They are all like that," Geneus said. "Cunning and mad . . . hating beyond all reason . . . I still do not understand how you were able to communicate with the one we found in Cimaron. I would have thought it impossible if I had not witnessed it." 

"I think she wanted to talk," I said slowly. "It wasn't anything I intentionally did, anyway. I wonder, which did Yelshi consider the more successful weapon? The completely crazy Originator from four thousand years ago, or the ones that could still be reasoned with, and maybe persuaded to be a bit . . . selective?" 

"I think he considered them both failures. The mad one, as you say, would have destroyed everything, and the others, for all that he did to them, still harboured a greater hate for him and his kind than they did toward anything or anyone else." 

I reached for a shard of the broken jar and put it inside the open one. Geneus raised his eyebrows. "You wish to take these with us?" 

I nodded. "Someone in Seisakoku has to know something about how the seals were created, but I don't want half of Yelshi-the-younger's court tramping around down here. And I'd rather that Saralegui didn't even know this place existed, because if he found out that something as powerful as those is so nearby . . ." I waved my hand suggestively in the direction of the shelf with the intact jars. 

Geneus grimaced. "I wish I could say that I did not think he would be such a fool, but he was both arrogant enough and ambitious enough to attempt to open The Edge of the Earth, and I do not think he has improved very much since then." 

"The problem with having a mind like a steel trap is that you can't see through steel," I said, and we both smiled crookedly. "I honestly don't think Yuuri would let him do anything that stupid," I added, "but I'm also not sure he'd catch it in time." 

"I agree. Your brother's odd fits of perceptiveness are . . . not reliable." 

A brief pause, while I finished gathering up the shards of earthenware. "So now what?" 

"We put the jars and your new weapon carefully away in our rooms, and go have a bath, I think. I have dust sticking to every crevice of my body," my fiancé admitted, wrinkling his nose in a way that made him look unexpectedly cute. 

"Sounds like a plan," I said. 

If Shin Makoku soap was made with lavender and Cimaronese soap with some nameless green herb, then the favoured additive for Seisakokan soap had to be oil of cloves, I found myself musing some twenty minutes later. It was liquid, too. Geneus and I had a pot of it between us in the outer room of the baths, where we were applying sponges and slightly brackish lukewarm water to our bodies, trying to clean off the worst of the dust before we ventured out to the courtyard pool. I grimaced as I wiped cobwebs from my hair, and ended up emptying and refilling the shallow sink in front of me for the third time after I'd thoroughly rinsed my sponge. 

Geneus had finished with the sponge phase and was pouring water over his head from one of the equally shallow bowls that went with the sinks. He had to repeat the action several times to ensure that his entire mane of black hair was wet. Then he reached for the soap. 

I caught his wrist. "Let me," I said in answer to his enquiring look. 

"Certainly." 

I rose from the stone bench we were sitting on and walked around to stand behind him. Dipping up some soap, I began to rub it into his hair, massaging his scalp with slow, circular motions. We both sighed, and Geneus let his shoulders slump slightly. 

"You know," I said thoughtfully, "we're likely to have this whole place to ourselves at this time of day. We don't have to just wash." Little Shouri was filling and hardening at the thought. We'd been too tired these past couple of days for much in the way of lovemaking. 

"I was not aware that you had an exhibitionist streak." The reply, although tart, didn't have any malice in it. 

"I never did before I met you," I said, truthfully. "But it's difficult for me to keep my hands off you. I love you and you're beautiful and we're engaged. Even if we get caught, people will probably just laugh it off." I was working my way down his neck now, spreading the soap both through hair and over skin. "Admit it," I added, looking down and forward, over his shoulder, and seeing an erection as firm as my own resting between those lean, pale-skinned thighs, "you like the idea too." 

"Well, you _will_ insist on parading yourself in front of me without any clothing, and you are already aware that I appreciate your body. How do you expect me to react?" 

"Just exactly the way you are," I said, running my fingers through his hair, down his back all the way to his ass. He arched slightly into my touch, catlike. Yes, he was definitely catlike. I leaned forward and whispered into his ear. " _I want you in me,_ " I told him, and felt him shiver under my touch. 

"You know, you two, you _have_ a room. There's no excuse for you getting it on in a public place." 

"You could just take your glasses off so you didn't have to watch, friend-of-my-brother," I suggested sourly to Murata, who had padded into the room barefoot and silently. 

"Sorry, Shibuya's-big-brother, but I'm _farsighted_ , not nearsighted the way you used to be. I can't read without my glasses, but I'd still be able to see every detail of you two going down on each other." 

"Well, you could always bring your own boyfriend along so you have something other to do than watch," I said, irritated. 

"What boyfriend? I'm into _girls_ , in case you had forgotten." 

"It didn't look that way when you were kissing Yelshi." 

"You were . . . Oh, hell. Next time, I guess I'm going to have to be more careful." Murata pushed his glasses up and tilted his head, using reflected light to hide his eyes again. "Yelshi was in the line of duty. Actually, I'm kind of surprised I was able to go through with it . . . but it was worth it. I found the sword." 

I . . . twitched, and Geneus' muscles tensed under my touch. "Where?" 

"In a secret room in the royal wing. Along with a whole bunch of other stuff whose purpose I'm still not sure of. I'd have liked to get a better look at the books, especially, but I didn't dare stay for long, in case Calmeth came back. Some of them were really old, though," Murata added wistfully. "I wonder if I even remember enough Telmorlan to decipher them." 

"Telmorlan?" I forced myself to resume washing Geneus' hair as though nothing had happened. 

"The old language of scholarship in this world, in the days before the Originators wiped Ystat and its library off the maps," Murata replied. "It sort of filled the same niche as Latin did in Europe before the Renaissance. There was some stuff with majutsu residue on it, too." 

"Most likely whatever they could not destroy," Geneus said. 

"Speaking of Originators," I added, "there are five left." 

Murata froze for a moment. "Sounds like I'm not the only one who's had an interesting day. Tell me about it?" 

Geneus was the one who did, mostly, and it took a while . . . not least because we kept getting sidetracked with things like the style of the pottery used for the jars—apparently the slight groove they all had halfway up their sides was characteristic of something-or-other—the components of the red seal goop that he had identified, exactly how Tessen would have had to have been made (a process closer to glassblowing with melted maseki fragments and fire and wind majutsu than any kind of normal smithing), and the type of genetic manipulation that might have been involved in creating the first Shinzoku. The one pertinent thing the discussion never touched on was the process of creating Originators. None of us seemed willing to speculate on that. Including me. 

The surprising part was that the conversation flowed smoothly, at least for the most part, with no snippy remarks from either Great Sage. They didn't like each other and I doubted they ever would, but they had once again reached a truce. 

After we'd told the full story, a long silence fell over the courtyard pool. Then Murata sighed. 

"The scary part is that Yelshi-the-older could be literally anywhere," he said. "Reincarnation isn't anything like an exact science. He could be Yelshi-the-younger, or one of the courtyard slaves, or a fisherman living in a mud hut in the Pirate Isles for all we know. This could take years." 

Geneus shook his head. "He is here, somewhere. Near the seat of his power. Recall that Vetruan said Yelshi has never passed the river. Unlike us, he has not been reincarnated in the normal manner—his condition would be more like Shin'ou's." 

I grimaced. "Who doesn't really have a body and can be impossible to find if he doesn't want to talk to you." 

"That isn't quite true," Murata said slowly. "Shin'ou is . . . constrained. The further he gets from what's left of his body, the less he can do. Unless he possesses someone, but that 'someone' would have to be practically right on top of his grave at the time, or he wouldn't have enough power to slip inside." 

"So now we're looking for the royal graveyard," I said. "Any ideas?" 

"We're going to have to ask someone," Murata said. "Beryes, Alazon, Yelshi . . . it almost doesn't matter." 

I tapped my fingers on the mosaic at the edge of the pool. The stones were warm from the harsh sunlight. "If his soul's tied to what's left of his body, what happens if we destroy his remains? Turn the bones to charcoal, pound them to dust in a mortar, and dump them in the ocean, or something like that?" 

Murata's mouth twitched. "Possessed fishermen. Probably. Maybe possessed fish, too." 

"Shit." 

How do you attack a soul? Okay, so I'd punched out Shin'ou, but that wasn't quite the same. For one thing, it would never have worked if he hadn't been willing himself solid, which Yelshi-the-older had no reason to do. And if he was inside someone else's body . . . 

"We must discover where he is before we can work out a strategy," Geneus said. "And we will not do that from here." 

"True enough," Murata admitted. "Man, this is going to be such a mess . . . I'll see what I can turn up on the jar-seals, and try to collar Yelshi tomorrow and ask about graveyards. He told me that Calmeth is probably going to be back late tonight, by the way." 

Which meant more arguing about the shapes of tables tomorrow. Great. Well, I'd volunteered, and so had Geneus. Even if just thinking about the pseudo-negotiations was giving me a headache. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, and tilted my head back. The sun that spilled across the courtyard, setting light dancing across the surface of the pool where we were soaking, was almost directly overhead. 

"They'll be serving lunch soon," Murata said, and rose from the water. Geneus and I followed a moment later. 

There had been servants in the dressing room, that was clear. Geneus' and my trousers (and my fiancé's tunic) had been brushed clean of cobwebs and dust, and folded neatly beside the clean shirts we'd brought down from our rooms. The dirty shirts were nowhere in sight. _I really could get used to this,_ I admitted to myself as I pulled on my Cimaronese boxer-briefs. 

I was buttoning my shirt when I realized that Geneus had frozen in mid-motion, with his hair unbraided and his shirt hanging open, staring at his tunic . . . or no, at what was lying on top of his tunic. 

It was a bit difficult for me to make out at first. Reflections of light, something delicate and complicated made of glass . . . I stepped to one side, changing the angle, and the conflicted sparkles resolved into a glass rose, every thorn and petal perfect . . . well, as far as I could tell. I wasn't exactly a botanist. 

"What the hell?" I muttered. 

"I do not know." Geneus was staring at the thing, but his expression had changed subtly, from the emptiness that was surprise to . . . well, I think he might have looked at a poisonous snake that way, if one had suddenly popped up in front of him. Wary, but also thoughtful. Planning an attack of his own. "The obvious interpretation would be that it is intended as a courtship gift, but leaving one for someone who is already engaged would be . . . beyond impolite. Of course, the customs here may be entirely different." 

Murata shook his head. "No, that part's the same—I did some research so that I would know how to act with Yelshi. Except for one or two details, Seisakokan customs in that area match Cimaron's." 

"Ah. Well, that simplifies matters, then." 

I licked my lips. "It does?" 

Geneus nodded. "Shin Makoku's customs with respect to gifts of courtship are much more intricate, in part because of the differences in the marriage laws. In this case, however, I wish to send a message that our gift-giver cannot possibly mistake no matter what customs he embraces. Shouri, I will need your hand and the loan of your maryoku for a moment." 

Silently, I held out my right hand. Just as silently, Geneus picked up the glass rose and placed it across my palm, then covered it with his own hand. I felt him tug at my maryoku and use it to do something with earth majutsu. 

There was a soft chime, and something like a sigh, and I felt the glass rose, thorns and all, crumble into powder. Sand sifted down, and ground between our palms as Geneus interlaced his fingers with mine. 

"I will not permit such a _trivial_ thing to come between us," my fiancé said firmly. "And even were my affections not already engaged, it is my experience that such theatrical foolishness seldom ends well." 

"I'm curious, though," Murata said. "Who would be crazy enough to have left it?" 

It _could_ have been any of those young idiots from the ball at which I'd proposed to Geneus. But there was something that didn't feel quite right about that idea. It was too simple and obvious . . . and the grim look on Geneus' face showed that he didn't think any such thing either. 

What had we gotten tangled up in _now_?


	39. Chapter 31

"The whole world is going crazy," I muttered as we dodged a careening rickshaw. With our illusion-disguises firmly in place, the mostly-naked man pulling the thing hadn't recognized us as foreigners. The shoulder-strap that went with my swordbelt chafed at my bare skin. I'd figured that going shirtless would be less conspicuous in the town below Seisakoku's royal palace, and I'd needed something to wrap Tessen in anyway, but it still felt weird. 

"It has never been entirely sane." Geneus, shirtless, was a treat to look at, the long scar on his shoulder pale against skin that the sun was turning increasingly golden. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one that thought so. People's gazes kept on sticking to both of us, then sliding off again when they noticed our earrings. It was all I could do not to growl at them. _Stop feeling up my fiancé with your eyes!_

But really, even with our black hair and eyes concealed, we didn't look much like the people around us. We were too healthy, too well-muscled, more than averagely dressed even without our shirts, and much lighter-skinned than almost everyone. Dark tans were the norm here, and most people had probably started building those tans when they'd still been toddlers. The incidence of skin cancer had to be outrageous. 

"Fish, my lords! Fresh and salt, the finest you will find this side of the Red Cape!" 

"Jars! Fine, sturdy jars, to hold your water, your salt, your—" 

The merchants seemed extraordinarily fond of the word "fine", I thought, a bit sourly. But for all that, it wasn't much of a market, just a few people displaying meager wares from mud-brick stalls. 

"Medicines, my lord! For burns and for sores, for wine-sickness and coughs, cuts and bruises and aching muscles—" 

Geneus touched my arm. "We should look at one or two of the stalls, at least. Otherwise, our lack of interest may be noted." 

"And you're curious about what they use in their medicines," I said. 

I was gifted with a quiet smile. "Naturally. But it can wait until we are on our way back." 

I shook my head. "Look if you want. It isn't like a couple of minutes will make that much difference." 

The stall had a roof of sheet metal, probably tin, and it was a bit of a relief to step into the shade it cast while Geneus poked and prodded at small earthenware pots and questioned the stallholder about their contents. I just let the sound of his voice wash over me without really listening to what he was saying, and as a result I was a bit surprised when his tone sharpened and I realized he was haggling over one particular small ceramic pot. Some coins changed hands, and he pocketed it. 

"Where did you get local money?" I asked. I might have asked what was in the pot, too, but it might easily have turned out to be a cure for boils that had a particularly fascinating ingredients list. 

"Lieutenant Gurrier has been gambling in the barracks." 

I snorted. "I hope he's better at whatever they play here than he is at hoket." We'd played so many hands of the card game that even I had started to be able to beat Josak. 

"He is better with dice than with cards, or so I understand . . . as long as he brings his own dice." 

I snorted. "That sounds like him, all right." 

"Interesting—Yuuri keeps a man who cheats at gambling games in his service?" The light voice, and the warm laugh that followed, were unpleasantly familiar, although in the press of the market crowd, I had once again failed to sense Saralegui's approach. Well, at least his perpetual shadow blocked the sun—Beryes was as good as a canopy any day, or would have been if he'd been a little wider. No one else seemed to think so, though, since the other market-goers were giving the pair a wide berth. Of course, two people who had fabric to _waste_ on layered clothing and long tunics probably looked wealthy indeed by local standards, and add that blonde hair and those golden eyes . . . 

"Josak mostly gambles to pass the time, and as an excuse to talk to people," I said. "When it isn't about the money, it doesn't really matter if you cheat." 

"That's an interesting point of view," Saralegui said. "By the way, Lord Shouri—has anyone ever told you that you make quite a striking blonde?" 

"Has anyone ever told you that flirting with a man who's engaged to someone else is rude?" I retorted. 

Saralegui just smiled, and gestured at a nearby building that sported a dangling sign depicting a jug and several pottery cups. "Would you care for a drink? There's something I'd like to discuss with you." 

"Some refreshment would not be unwelcome," Geneus said, before I could formulate an answer . . . but I didn't doubt my fiancé's thoughts were very much like my own: _Let's see what the little weasel's up to this time._

The inside of the building was cool, quiet, and dimly lit, and we pretty much had it to ourselves except for the young woman behind the counter, who accepted a gesture from Beryes as directions to bring a pitcher and four cups to our table. She then retreated back to her original position against the back wall, watching us with wide eyes . . . No, I decided, she was watching Beryes. Probably wondering what an obvious Shinzoku nobleman was doing gracing her humble establishment, and why he was acting like a servant, pouring for the rest of us. 

The liquid in the pitcher turned out to be iced tea—iced _Cimaronese_ tea, Shin'ou be thanked, spicy-sweet, rather than the vile vinegar-with-lemon-juice that they served up at the palace. It washed the dust out of my mouth, although the way Saralegui was looking at me over the rim of his cup made it taste a bit sour. 

Geneus took a single sip and then set his drink back down. He made a graceful, arcing gesture that drew wind majutsu in its wake. 

Saralegui smiled at him and lowered his cup, although he kept it in his hands. "Thank you. I did want this to be private." 

Geneus inclined his head. "What did you want to speak to us about?" 

"Politics." 

Heroically, I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. "Care to be more specific?" 

"The near future of Seisakoku." 

"You wish to know if we intend to intervene any further." Geneus took a slow sip of iced tea. 

"The other Lord Sage told me that the sword's been found—actually, I thought for a moment that you had it, but that one's too big and the hilt's wrong," Saralegui said, nodding at Tessen, now leaning against the leg of our stone table. 

I frowned, ignoring the tacit suggestion that I explain where I'd gotten such a peculiar weapon. Murata had told him about finding the Holy Sword, but not about everything else? It was possible that they'd had that conversation before we'd met up in the baths, but Murata could have intentionally sought Saralegui out afterwards. If he hadn't, there was probably a reason, but what? Okay, so the king of Small Cimaron was subtle and slippery and couldn't be trusted, but we were all in this together, weren't we? Or . . . were we? Saralegui's previous experience with the Originators had been pretty peripheral. He might have ordered his flunkies to try to open The Edge of the Earth, but he hadn't been present when they'd done it or even sent Beryes as witness, and I doubted that the disruption and destruction that the corrupted Shin'ou had caused had reached his country. That he had a genuine, emotional as well as intellectual, understanding of what an Originator was and what it could do, was . . . doubtful. 

I glanced down at Tessen, and wondered what Vetruan was thinking of all this. And if he'd have the brains to keep it to himself. _And until the last vile carcass is added to the pile before the walls of the city . . ._ Those words just wouldn't leave my head. I really, really did hope that getting rid of Yelshi-the-older would be enough to satisfy our questionable ally, because if it wasn't, I didn't know what I was going to do. Vetruan was just as terrifying as the possessed Shin'ou, and quite possibly more powerful. 

"What do you _want_ us to do?" I asked Saralegui slowly. 

"Support my brother," came the prompt reply . . . but Saralegui wasn't meeting my eyes, even through his glasses. Instead, he was staring down at the cup in his hands, twisting and turning it. Clockwise, counterclockwise. Clockwise, counterclockwise. I'd never seen him fidget before. 

"Is that what Yelshi wants?" I asked. 

Clockwise, counterclockwise. "I don't know. I haven't been able to speak to him. Even at the ball, they kept us apart. I tried to send Beryes with a message . . . I even tried reaching for him with my houryoku. Calmeth has blocked me every time." 

"Calmeth does not want his charge to have any contact with us," Beryes rumbled. "He has been keeping Yelshi and my sister apart, as well. I am surprised my nephew was able to find a way to see you, however briefly." 

I drank more iced tea, deliberately nonchalant. "What does Alazon intend to do?" 

A long pause. "We have spoken only briefly, but I believe my sister is of two minds," Beryes said. "She wishes to see her sons safe, and secure in their positions . . . but at the same time, she has a vindictive streak, and she has never liked Calmeth. Judging from the traffic coming and going from her rooms, she has been conspiring with Terruzos about something." 

There were too many players in this damned game, and they were all trying to use the others as pawns. If I'd been drawing a physical diagram of all the power relationships and interactions, instead of keeping it all in my head, I would have been needing another sheet of paper about now. Calmeth wanted himself in, Yelshi wanted him out, and Terruzos wanted . . . what, exactly? He had been a royalist, Alazon's supporter. Did Alazon want the throne back? That Calmeth would want to avoid that possibility above all was obvious: going from regent for an underage king to leader of one faction in the court of an adult queen wouldn't benefit him in any way. 

It all depended on what Alazon really wanted to do. Taking the throne back would vastly increase her power base and make it easier for her to act openly, but if she wanted to interfere from the shadows instead . . . 

"If Alazon and Yelshi were removed from the picture, who would the next heir be?" Geneus suddenly asked. 

"Saralegui," Beryes replied instantly. "Indeed, if His Majesty wished to stand, he would be chosen before his mother—his power is substantially greater than hers. After that, the trail becomes tangled, with nearly a dozen candidates with similar levels of power. Including myself," the big Shinzoku admitted, with a frown. "Calmeth is on that list as well." 

"What about Terruzos?" There was just something about the older Shinzoku that niggled at me. 

Beryes nodded. "However, given his age, it is unlikely in the extreme that he would be chosen. He also has a bad heart that no amount of houjutsu healing has been able to permanently repair. I am astounded that he is still alive." 

_Damned spiderweb._ I frowned into my cup. I wasn't sure to what extent any of this was going to help us find the spirit of Yelshi-the-older. Allies were useful, yes, but . . . I sighed. Saralegui was Yuuri's friend. Yuuri had talked about helping Yelshi-the-younger as though it were a foregone conclusion. And while I didn't think that starting a fight with my brother was the end of the world, fighting with him when he wasn't—yet—in danger would just make it more difficult to get him to take my real worries seriously. Or so I told myself. 

"We do not have many possible scenarios to draw upon," Geneus said. "The only viable option is to retrieve the sword and present it as publicly as possible to the ruler we intend to support. However, we must determine the timing, and whether the rightful ruler is Yelshi, or Alazon . . . or Alazon as regent for Yelshi, which might solve a great many problems." 

"It might indeed," Beryes said slowly. "And it is perfectly reasonable, in terms of the law. I will speak to my sister. You will have her answer by tonight." 

Saralegui was staring across the table at us with an unfathomable expression. Somehow I couldn't really believe that the twisty little snake was doing all this because of a sudden outburst of fraternal feeling. Where did the advantage for him lie in all of this? Now that he'd seen Seisakoku, he had to be aware that any help his mother's people could offer him in retaking Small Cimaron was going to be limited. They didn't seem to have many men under arms, and even if they'd been willing to strip the palace guard, the navy, and whatever forces the individual lords might have, they had almost no ships worthy of the name. Or was he thinking a little longer-term? The holy sword could accelerate plant growth. If he threw all of his power into it, they might get a fair bit of timber. Then a year or two to build the ships . . . 

"What are you two doing down in the city, anyway?" the young king suddenly asked. "Sneaking out of the palace in disguise, too . . . one might almost think that you weren't impressed with Calmeth's hospitality." 

"I need a scabbard and harness for that," I said, nodding toward Tessen. "Since leather's worth its weight in gold here, I figured I'd try the arms locker on the ship before searching the palace or the marketplace. And we wanted to see where the captain was at in terms of reprovisioning, just in case. If we have to pull out of here fast, I'd rather not spend the entire trip back north eating giant squid takoyaki with no ginger." 

"What are takoyaki, anyway?" Saralegui asked. 

"Octopus dumplings." That didn't seem to enlighten him, though. "Little balls of minced-up octopus, mixed with seasonings and some other stuff, and breaded. They're actually pretty good, but—at least where Yuuri and I come from—they're usually considered a snack, not a full meal." 

"And an octopus is . . . a kind of squid?" 

They didn't have octopus here? Granted, Earth didn't have dragons or bearbees, so it made sense that there would be Earth animals that didn't exist here, but octopus seemed like such a random choice . . . "Close enough. Look, if there isn't anything else _important_ , we should get going. Sooner or later, someone's going to notice that we've left the palace, and I'd like to be done with our business before that." 

Okay, so I was a bit worried. If the ship couldn't be ready to leave at a moment's notice, our only way out of here was going to be via the majutsu-driven tunnel through elemental water, and I wasn't sure that even Yuuri and Murata and Geneus and I all combined had enough maryoku to haul along everyone my brother was likely to insist on bringing. Conrad and Wolfram would probably be okay. Josak . . . maybe. Saralegui and Beryes would be pushing it, and I just knew that he was going to insist on bringing Alazon as well . . . and maybe the entire crew of the Cimaronese ship, too. There was no hope in hell of us pulling _that_ off. 

Saralegui bid us a polite farewell, and we rejoined the people in the marketplace, blinking at the bright sun. We had traveled perhaps two blocks from the cafe when Geneus stopped just as we were passing a gap between the ocean-side warehouses. 

"What is it?" I asked. 

Geneus nodded toward the ocean. "Look out there, and tell me that you do _not_ see what I see." 

I looked. Fishing rafts, naval ships, a few people swimming, miscellaneous flotsam . . . _What am I supposed to be seeing?_ A sidelong glance at my fiancé told me that he had turned his head slightly toward the navy docks, where the Cimaronese ship was tied up. That gave me a bad feeling. I pivoted slightly. 

At first, I still couldn't see anything. The wooden ship, berthed between two of the metal ones that glittered in the sun, and beyond them yet another metal ship, drawn up on skids, with several people scraping the parts of it that would normally have been below the waterline. It was almost painful to look at, with the bright sun pouring down on the metal, on the water, on . . . the air. _What the hell?_

I looked again. There _was_ something there, a line of heat haze suspended across the water with nothing visible to create it . . . I extended my focus and found . . . earth. Metal. A heavy chain, concealed by houjutsu, and this time it wasn't dangling into the water. 

I turned to face Geneus. Took a deep breath. "I'd like to be able to say what you asked me to, but I think I'd be lying if I did." 

His mouth thinned. Then he sighed. "It is not an absolute disaster—we have a number of people in our party that I believe would be capable of breaking two-inch steel chain with majutsu or houjutsu. However, we will not be able to depart without attracting attention." 

I forced a smile. "Besides, if we left now, we'd have a pissed-off Originator with us. I don't think sneaking away is going to be an option. Not for us. It's just that I would have liked to be able to send Yuuri out of harm's way." 

"He would not have gone." 

"Not on his own, maybe. I was thinking of knocking him out and having Conrad carry him." 

"A plan not entirely without merit," Geneus acknowledged. "We had best enquire as to the condition of the ship anyway." 

I nodded grimly, and we proceeded together to the unguarded gateway that separated the civilian docks from the naval yard. 

The worst problem the ship was suffering turned out to be a rash of very bored sailors. Apparently having whores available wasn't good enough for them when there wasn't any booze to go with them. When I found a harness but no scabbard the right size for Tessen in the arms locker, the sail-sewers just about fell over each other in their offers to create a canvas sheath for the edgeless blade, because it was Something To Do. It took them less than an hour to seal the necessary seam, hands flying, and attach the straps that would hold the result to my new harness. 

The ship did have nearly full provision, the captain told me, although the food consisted almost entirely of salt fish and there would be no alcohol ration for the sailors. Sail canvas was a little low, but not so much so that we'd have to rely entirely on the houjutsu engine to carry us north against the currents, and there was nothing we could do about it anyway. 

I put my shirt on before we left just out of self-defense—the additional leather straps of the harness had turned out to cause more chafing than my bare skin could take. The weight across my back felt odd, and the hilt bobbing at the edge of my peripheral vision whenever I turned my head startled me a couple of times. But I knew I'd get used to it, just like I'd adapted to the weight hanging from my belt. I just needed a few days. 

With me fully dressed, we collected even more stares on our way back up to the palace. We both let the illusions cloaking us shimmer into nothingness before we approached the guards at the gate, who stared but let us through without question. 

Everything seemed to be going okay until we got back to our rooms, and found that someone else had been there while we'd been out. 

The necklace was . . . impressive. Worn, it would have formed a massive collar of silver chain and small blue-violet gems. The centrepiece pendant was a jet-black stone nearly the size of the palm of my hand, engraved with the merlion crest of Shin Makoku. And it was lying on top of the folded tunic that Geneus had left behind on our bed. 

My fiancé once again had that saw-a-snake expression on his face, so I reached out and picked the damned thing up, doing my best to look down my nose at it. 

"Your secret admirer has more money than taste," I said. "Persistent, too. How in hell did he get this, anyway?" I tapped the pendant with my finger. 

"Jet is easy enough to carve," Geneus said. "Especially with the aid of houjutsu to prevent damage. I would suspect that was made in the past few days, and replaced an existing pendant made of some other stone." 

"Do you want to destroy this?" I asked. 

"Not completely. Unlike the rose, which was a pure houjutsu creation, this is handwork, and the bulk of it was made before we arrived here. It may be traceable, especially given that tanzanite is not a common gem anywhere that I have been. Erasing the crest on the pendant should be enough to show that the gift is not accepted." Grasping the pendant, he ran his thumb over the surface, and a bit of dust fell away, leaving smooth, shining blackness behind. "There. And just in case our unknown attempts to recover it before we can begin asking questions . . ." His frown was one of concentration as I felt him grasp wind with his mind and curl it around the necklace. Silver and gems shimmered and vanished, although I could still feel the weight in my hand. 

He gasped and swayed as he snapped the link between himself and the coil of majutsu, raising a hand to his temple, and I hurriedly stuffed the necklace through my belt so that I could wrap my arms around him and support him. 

"It's been a really long day," I said quietly. _And you've done one heck of a lot of majutsu._ Not huge, world-shaking spells, but a lot of small- to medium-sized stuff, most of it requiring fine control. Like the practice sessions with Ulrike that used to leave me so tired. "Maybe we should try to get an hour or so of sleep before supper." 

"Truth be told, I had something else in mind," Geneus said. The look he gave me made my breath catch in my throat, and I licked my lips. 

"Maybe we can make it half an hour of sleep. Afterwards." 

There were a couple of other things I was thinking of saying, but Geneus didn't let me, and after the first split second, I couldn't remember what they were anyway, because his tongue was tangling slickly with mine and he was unweaving his braid and rubbing his thigh and hip against my body with just enough pressure to make the fabric of my trousers slide over my skin with a delicious friction. 

"Put the necklace away so that we do not lose it," he said, with one last gentle nip at my lower lip. "And then . . ." 

And then . . . oh, _Shin'ou_ , yes. 

I fumbled the invisible necklace into the trunk we'd brought up from the ship to use for storage, and relocked it. As soon as I straightened up, Geneus' arms were around me, unbuckling my new sword harness and unbuttoning my shirt so that he could slip his hand inside. His fingertips brushed a trace of something wet across my nipple, and I hissed, eyes opening wide as the wetness became warm and tingly, the sensation spreading through me like a shockwave. 

"What—?" 

"Surely you did not think I spent all that time at that herb stall out of mere curiosity," Geneus said in my ear. "Normally this is used for soothing sore muscles, but it has other interesting applications." His finger drew a slow, slick line up toward my collarbone. "Imagine it coating you here." His other hand dipped between my legs, rubbing over the bulge that was a very interested Little Shouri. "Or imagine it . . . inside you." 

I moaned. Just the idea was . . . I fumbled more of my shirt open, and he stroked the oil across my other nipple, leaving it tight and warm and tingly and etched into my consciousness. A curving line across my throat as I fought my belt open, and a straight one down my sternum as I toed my boots off, nearly losing my balance and pitching forward into his arms. Then I finally had my damned trousers off, and the boxer-briefs too, and I fell back onto the bed and spread my legs without any kind of prompting from my fiancé. I wanted him . . . wanted him so badly . . . 

Geneus didn't seem in any hurry to have it over, though. He never did. He was a total sensualist, and when he took charge during sex, he could leave me hovering right on the edge of an orgasm for as much as an hour. And I loved it—loved not just the sensations, but the chance to relax and let someone that I absolutely trusted take over. It wasn't a feeling that anyone else could evoke in me. 

My fiancé, still wearing his pants, sat down at the end of the bed and took my left foot into his lap. My toes twitched involuntarily as he brushed the warming oil over my insole, then trailed his fingers up the inside of my leg, ending by tracing an intricate pattern on the inside of my thigh. He repeated the treatment on the right, but this time his hand continued further up, cupping my balls, stroking them . . . the warming tingle was almost unbearable on the sensitive skin there, and I whimpered and shifted against his hand. 

"Do you want me to stop?" 

"Like hell," I said hoarsely, and heard him chuckle. 

His finger slid back along my perineum to my ass, not dipping inside, just painting that damned oil over the outside of the opening there and leaving the muscle twitching hungrily, aching to be stretched . . . 

And then, of course, he stopped to take his pants off, leaving me there, unfulfilled, cock aching, legs spread, vulnerable and hungry and maddeningly aware of the parts of my body on which he'd lavished his attentions. 

"Tease," I muttered. 

"Waiting only heightens the pleasure—as you have doubtless discovered by now." 

I grabbed one of the thin pillows the palace staff had allotted us and threw it at him. His dodge was a fluid motion, a smooth ripple of the muscles of his upper body. And his eyes never left me for even half a second. They glittered with warmth, humour, and desire, reminding me all over of why I'd fallen in love with this man. 

He bent over me and stole a kiss, midnight hair pouring down to coil in pools on my chest. I wove the fingers of one hand through it to hold him in place while I snuck my other hand toward him a bit lower down. 

He might be patient and teasing, but he was also hard, and he gasped when I ran the pad of my thumb over the underside of his cock. I teased the slit lightly with my nail, feeling moisture seeping out under my touch. Then his hand snuck backwards too, and a twitch of earth majutsu exerted on the little ceramic pot of oil called it to his palm. I lifted my hips invitingly, but instead he drew a slick line around my navel, then dripped a bit of the oil inside, and feeling the tingling warmth there made me jerk as a soft, wordless noise spilled from my lips. 

His hair trailed through my fingers as he straightened up, tossed his head, and bent again to lick his way slowly up my cock, and then slowly back down again. Slick fingers retraced their pattern on the inside of my thigh—he must have been using his maryoku senses, because the new lines and curlicues followed the old ones exactly. He painted the soft, sensitive skin in the crease where my leg joined my torso, and then finally his fingers dipped between my buttocks and slid inside. 

The feeling of tingling warmth in such an intimate place, and his fingers stroking my prostate, made me jerk again and bite down on my lower lip to muffle what I think would have been a full-throated scream if I'd let it. Shakily, I forced a few seconds of concentration on myself—healing and water maryoku, loosen the muscles and increase the blood flow—only to come undone again as he pressed into me more firmly. A familiar knot of molten heat formed inside me as he spread his fingers, and I writhed, pushing back until a touch brought me up short. 

"Shouri, you are not nearly loose enough yet to take my entire hand, even if I intended to give it to you." 

His entire . . . stretching me to the limit . . . oh, _Shin'ou_ . . . 

Geneus chuckled. "I see that part of you would like very much to attempt it." He stroked the underside of my cock, and I dug my fingers into the thin mattress underneath me, fighting for control. "Someday, perhaps. Right now, I want you too much to wait through all the stretching such an act would require." 

Somehow, I managed to dredge up some words. "Like hell—you're never impatient. About anything." 

"Do you truly think that? Usually you seem to be able to penetrate my facades. You are more skilled at it even than he was. Almost as though you were created to partner me . . ." There was a subtle change in his expression as the sentence trailed off, eyes going distant, smile freezing on his lips . . . Then he shook his head, and the corner of his mouth quirked up a little further. "And if you were, I receive the gift with gratitude." 

He knelt between my spread legs, and I raised my hips, offering myself. He coated himself in oil and thrust into me almost in a single motion, and we both gasped. It was the strangest feeling, like streams of pleasure were rippling up from my feet and down along my chest, following the paths his fingers had traced, all converging between my legs. My balls felt incredibly full, warm, heavy, _aching_ , the pressure inside them building with each thrust . . . 

" _Can't hold,_ " I gasped. 

Geneus' fingers grasped the base of Little Shouri, squeezing firmly. "You can. Just . . . a little . . . more . . ." He shifted the angle of his hips so that he sank even deeper into me. "Shouri . . ." 

I spoke his real name in a thick, choked, desperate tone that sounded nothing like my own. My maryoku rippled and writhed under my skin, and then began to spread outward—not an extension of my focus, because there was nothing focused or controlled about this, only the raw need to hold him as close as I possibly could, to wrap around the core of him and protect it, to take him inside me in all possible ways. _Love you . . . so much . . . won't ever let you go . . ._ I caressed his power clumsily with mine, and felt his hand spasm and release my cock as the world whited out in a flash of pure pleasure. 

When I recovered, my ass was disappointingly empty, but my maryoku was still wrapped around his, and he was leaning over me, disheveled and perfect, smiling as he bent down for a kiss . . . and yet there was a hint of disappointment about him. 

I gathered my wits and took over that kiss, slipping him tongue and putting my hand on the nape of his neck to hold him in place. 

"We're not done yet," I told him when I finally let him up for air. "Lie back." I patted the mattress beside me. 

He gave me an inscrutable look, but obediently laid down. I propped myself up on one elbow and reached for the oil, slicking my fingers. 

"I never get tired of looking at you," I said, running a finger lightly around the rim of his pierced ear. "You are the most beautiful person I've ever known . . . and you would be no matter what body you were in. No one has eyes like yours." A touch transferred some of the oil from the tip of my finger to the earring, and I turned the ring, letting his tiny shudder tell me when the oil had bled into the tunnel of the piercing itself. "I never thought I'd be able to say anything like that without blushing or stuttering—I guess it's because this feels so completely right. Because _you're_ exactly right, the partner I always needed. The person I can trust in everything." 

His smile was quietly wry. "Do not raise your expectations too high. Despite my peculiar condition, I am quite mortal and fallible, beloved." 

"So am I," I said. "It doesn't keep me from loving you. _All_ of you, the people you have been, the man you are now . . . the man you will be a hundred years from now, when we have six children and we're both frazzled from taking care of them." 

"Six in a mere century? Ambitious." His eyes were laughing, though. 

"I always wanted a big family," I admitted as I took his nipple between my fingers, gently squeezing and twisting until the pink of it darkened half a shade and it stood up in a tight little peak. "Does that bother you?" 

"Not at all, although I fear the surrogate fees will be high. We can have them in pairs to reduce the costs a bit, I suppose." 

"Twins? Hmm." I let my fingers wander over his throat, feeling the movement under my fingers as he swallowed. "Well, we do have a little while to decide." 

"A year or two," came the soft agreement as I traced the line of his collarbones. 

A sudden thought hit me, and I snorted. "Can you imagine Günter trying to handle an entire class full of our children?" 

"I have no doubt that Lord von Christ would rise to the challenge . . . although I would not wish him to have sole charge of their education, given how overwhelming he can be. But we would need at least ten to give him a decent class—do you truly think we can care for so many infants at once?" 

"Probably not," I admitted, with my hand slowly outlining the firm muscles of his stomach. Little Shouri was already starting to stir again, but Little Geneus appeared to need a bit more recovery time. "If we're going to have them, I want to make sure we look after them right. We can probably have the servants at Blood Pledge Castle spell us off sometimes, but I don't ever want our kids to feel like we're neglecting them." 

"Nor do I," Geneus admitted. "When a parent fails to care for a child, it leaves behind an emptiness which can never be entirely filled." 

Realizing what I'd done, I kissed his cheek. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring back bad memories." 

"They have little power to hurt me now. Mere scenes in a play . . . largely thanks to you." 

"I'm glad." I crooked my leg, raising my knee to lie against his groin, and smiled as he rubbed himself lazily against it. He still had some of the oil on his cock—I could feel it warming my skin. And inside me, too . . . I moaned softly and pushed against his hip. Shin'ou, that tingle was maddening and delicious . . . 

I dipped my fingers into the oil pot and began to rub the liquid slowly into his balls, stroking until his breath came faster and I could feel his hardness against my wrist. I rolled over and rose onto my knees, straddling his thighs and dipping down to grind against him. He grabbed my ass with both hands and held me so that he could push harder, thrusting up between my legs, rubbing himself against my perineum. 

He gave a soft, sobbing cry when I slid my fingers into him, and again as I attacked his prostate. He opened easily for me this time, without a hint of resistance, and I wondered briefly if he'd done something to himself, some healing maryoku trick. The thought fell back out my other ear as he caressed me with his power, and I mindlessly rubbed myself against his leg, aching. The touch of his maryoku had the power to undo me as nothing else could. 

He was the one who coated Little Shouri in oil and guided me into the tight, hot clutch of his body. I wasn't thinking straight enough to do anything of the sort, although once I was in, my hips moved on their own in a steady rhythm. 

If this had been the first round instead of the second, I think I would have lost it almost immediately, just from the tightness and the warmth and the tingling and the soft sounds he made as the head of my cock rubbed against his prostate. He guided my hand to his cock, and made more of those soft, needy sounds as we stroked it together . . . and then I felt it: the sudden juddering squeeze of his body, and the sticky wetness on my fingers as his mouth moved silently, shaping my name. The molten knot in my balls untied itself, and I howled wordlessly as I came. 

I think I must have stayed there for several minutes afterwards, hands braced against the mattress, trying to catch my breath, with Little Shouri still inside my fiancé's body. Then something cool and wet touched me, and I looked down to see a miniature water dragon slithering over my skin, cleaning away sweat and residual oil and . . . other stuff. 

"You shouldn't be using majutsu," I said as I sat back on my heels, pulling out of him.. 

"Beloved, I do know where my limits lie, and I am not going to injure myself. I would, however, prefer to be comfortable while we catch that half-hour of sleep you promised me." 

"We can rest a little longer, if you'd like," I said. "Have the servants bring supper up to us, even. With Calmeth gone, there's no reason for us to eat with the court." 

"Unless we wish to speak to a certain young king without relaying everything we would like to say through a certain bespectacled irritant. We need to—" 

There was a knock at the suite's outer door. A loud one. "Shouri-sama! M'Lord Sage! Are you two in there?" 

"We're not decent," I called back. 

"As though you ever were," Josak replied. "Throw something on by the count of ten, because I'm coming in." 

I swore and looked around frantically for my pants. Geneus just grabbed the corner of the sheet and flipped it across his lap. Damn it, where were my clothes?! 

Josak opened the hallway door and slipped inside just as I was frantically tying the arms of my shirt around my waist, to at least put _something_ between my crotch and the world at large. 

"This had better be important," I snapped, flushing. 

"Oh, yeah, it's important," Josak said, looking grim. "Yelshi's been kidnapped."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brough to you by the Department of Evil Cliffhangers. ~_^


	40. Chapter 32

We met in Alazon's suite. It was either that or try to sneak her out past the guards that flanked her door—windows weren't an option, because they all looked out on a heavily populated courtyard. Since Geneus and I had to dress, we were the last to get there. When we arrived, we found Conrad and Josak standing on either side of the door, Beryes looming beside the window, directly behind the seat that Saralegui had chosen, Murata sitting at one end of a long bench with his head in his hands and his glasses in his lap, Yuuri fussing over him, and Wolfram glaring at them both, his expression suggesting a mixture of concern and jealousy. Alazon herself was seated a little apart from everyone else, looking tired. 

"I told you, Shibuya, I'd like to have it checked by someone who has at least rudimentary medical training before we try healing anything—concussions can be nasty. The reality isn't at all like what they show on TV." 

"Concussion?" Geneus was frowning. 

I think Murata smiled—the corner of his mouth was just barely visible past the edge of his hand. "Nasty one—I'm pretty screwed up. Someone hit me over the head from behind. I'm dizzy, my ears are ringing, the light hurts my eyes, I already threw up lunch, and I'm missing I don't know how much time—more than ten minutes, but less than an hour. I think. I don't know how long I was out. Classic symptoms, in other words." 

"Spirits," my fiancé muttered. The tone made it a curse. "Have you at least had someone check your eyes?" 

"His pupils are even and respond properly to light," Conrad said, and added, "Battlefield medicine," with a shrug. 

Geneus went over and put a hand on Murata's head. "A sword pommel, or something of similar size," he said after a moment. "Rounded, thankfully. No skull fracture or serious damage to the brain. You were lucky." 

"I figured it was probably something like that, but it's a bad idea to try to diagnose yourself," Murata said. 

"Perhaps, while I make repairs, you could take it upon yourself to tell us exactly what this has to do with Yelshi," Geneus said. Before he could gather his maryoku, I stepped forward and put my hand on his shoulder, offering him mine. A moment later, I felt the gentle tug of . . . well, I didn't really understand what he was doing. Something subtle that tangled earth, water, and healing majutsu. I think it might have had to do with the chemical balance inside Murata's brain. 

"I was with him at the time," Murata said. "I think. The last thing I remember is playing zhiba in his sitting room. I was on the balcony when I woke up, and the room . . . well, it was obvious _something_ had happened, 'cause the table was on its side and there were zhiba tokens all over the floor. I used one of the secret passages to get out of the wing without anyone seeing me—if the guards had known I was there, someone would have tried to pin everything on me. This way, all anyone should be able to tell is that someone upchucked on the balcony." 

"There's something I've been wondering about," I said. "What did you expect to get from seducing Yelshi?" 

Murata shrugged one shoulder. "I needed an excuse to get into certain areas of the palace to search for the sword. It seemed like a good idea at the time." 

"You couldn't just have asked him? He's supposed to be on our side, if you'll remember, friend-of-my-brother, and he wanted to find that damned sword as much as we did." 

Murata had an odd expression on his face, visible even past his shielding hand. "It never even crossed my mind. Which doesn't make any sense. Unless seducing Yelshi really wasn't my idea at all. Which means . . ." 

"That the original Yelshi is playing us for fools," Geneus said, his mouth thinning to a hard line as he removed his hand from Murata's head. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him so angry. 

Yuuri blinked. "Am I . . . missing something here?" 

Judging from the way just about everyone else was staring at us, Murata hadn't gotten the time to talk to anyone after our shared bath this morning. I sighed. "It's like this . . ." 

In as few words as possible, I expanded on what I'd told him about my dream on the first night, laying out what we knew about the founding of Seisakoku—the whole burning-palaces, torture-murder, various-nasty-ghosts thing. I didn't mention the four jars of Originator that were still standing in the torture chamber, but I did manage to work in the broken ones and suggest that we might be able to bottle Yelshi-original up in something similar if we could figure out how they worked. As I spoke those words, I heard a ghost of laughter in my head—the first time Vetruan had made his presence known since we'd left the torture chamber. I guess he really liked the idea of his old enemy ending up in the same kind of prison he'd occupied for what must have been centuries. 

"So you have one of these creatures following you around?" Saralegui asked. His expression was disingenuous, which only meant that I was even less likely to believe the question was innocent. 

I grimaced and glanced down at Tessen, now propped against the side of the bench Geneus and I were sharing. Handling one sword had been a pain in the ass; handling two, and having to take them both off when I wanted to sit down on anything that had arms or a back, went way beyond that. "Sort of. I don't think he's going to be much help, though. He hates Shinzoku in general only a little less than he hates Yelshi-original in particular, and he's treating this as a test." 

"Of what?" Wolfram asked, seeming much happier now that Yuuri wasn't fussing over Murata anymore. 

I shrugged. "Goodwill? Competence? Worthiness to survive? I don't know exactly what aspect of this is most important to him, but I do know that if we don't find Yelshi-original, we're going to have to fight Vetruan. And if that happens, a lot of people are going to end up dead, because he's _stronger_ than the Originator Shin'ou bottled up in the Boxes. The only thing that's been keeping the world safe from him for the last several thousand years is the fact that he's managed to retain some fraction of his humanity, despite the way he died." 

"So does anyone have any idea where the royal graveyard would have been, in Yelshi-original's day?" Murata had put his glasses back on, but his eyes were closed behind them. I hoped it was just out of embarrassment, and not because his head was still bothering him. We were going to need everyone in top form if we wanted to deal with this successfully. 

"There never was one," Beryes rumbled. "Our kings and queens have traditionally been returned to their family homes for burial." 

"It would be too convenient for his tomb to be a landmark, I guess," I said. 

"And even if we do find his body, what are we gonna do with it?" Josak put in. 

"Stuff it into a box and haul it off to somewhere less populated," I said. "He should be dragged along with it. And then start throwing a lot of wide-area majutsu around until we hurt him badly enough that he starts trying to hit back. It's the easiest way to attract his attention. Otherwise we're going to have to find some other way of pissing him off . . . which is going to be tough, because as far as I can tell, what he's doing makes no sense. If he hates Mazoku even half as much as Vetruan hates Shinzoku, pointing Murata at Yelshi should be the last thing he'd want to do." 

"Josak, we did have a conversation sometime after midnight, the night those two got themselves engaged, didn't we?" Murata said slowly. "Just so that I'm sure." 

The big spy shrugged. "Well, I remember us talking, but if he tricked you into thinking we'd talked, couldn't he have done the same to me?" 

Murata's grimace was enough of an answer. "Usually, creating memories that make sense with magic is impossible, but Yelshi-original is centuries older even than me. If there's a way to do it, he'll have found it." 

"Until we have some kind of proof, let's assume that he can't," I said. If we started doubting ourselves and each other to that extent, we might as well give up . . . except, of course, that if I gave up on this, I was going to get killed. 

_Quite right._ Vetruan's whisper in my head sounded almost approving, although the sensation accompanying it was more like someone was breathing arctic cold down the back of my neck. _And I have never seen him succeed in such a thing, although I have seen him try. The illusion falls apart the moment the victim examines it too closely._

Yuuri's eyes were wide. "Am I the only one who heard that?" 

My and Murata's "No"s overlapped with Geneus' "You were not." 

"Good—I'd hate to think I was going crazy. That was . . . him, wasn't it? Vetruan?" Yuuri shuddered. "He feels . . ." 

I grimaced. "Tell me about it." _Just don't talk about it where he can hear you, you idiot._ "It isn't like he doesn't have his reasons, though. Going through what he went through would probably have been enough to turn even you into a vengeful spirit." 

"He doesn't want my brother on the throne," Saralegui suddenly said, and I blinked several times. _Talk about your quick changes of topic!_ "It's the only plausible explanation. Attempting to cause a scandal by involving him with an unsuitable lover, and then, when the Sage proved to be too discreet, the kidnapping . . ." 

"It fits," Murata said, eyebrows knitting together in a formidable frown. "In more ways than one. Yelshi . . . we talked a bit, and he had some ambitious plans. He wanted to bring Seisakoku out of stealth mode and open up foreign travel and trade. He seemed to be hoping for a marriage alliance, although he never came right out and said so." 

"Meaning that Yelshi-original is an isolationist," I said slowly. 

Alazon nodded. "The governing precepts he laid down do tend to point in that direction," she said. 

"In which case, it appears that we have a better plan than stumbling around blindly looking for a tomb," Geneus said. "Assuming that King Saralegui is willing." 

"And that we can find some really good red dye," Murata added, with a crooked grin. 

"Let me guess," Saralegui said. "You want me to stand up in front of the entire country with the sword in my hands and declaim that the borders shall henceforth be unguarded. While pretending to be my brother. And waiting to see who tries to kill me. Sounds interesting." 

The young king's placid smile didn't fool me at all, but I still wasn't quite sure what was behind it. 

"I am hoping we will not need to be that dramatic," Geneus said. "But if we are going to do this, we need to get matters in motion before Calmeth gets back. The last thing we need is for someone to discover that Yelshi is gone, when we are the obvious scapegoats. And we will need a secondary decoy for King Saralegui. We can claim for a time that he is indisposed, but if he must appear in public . . ." He turned his head slightly so that his gaze fell on Wolfram, and a few seconds later, everyone was staring at the blonde, who bristled. 

"Me?! Why?" 

"Because you're about the right size and no one's paying any attention to you," I said bluntly. "We could have Josak do it, but even Geneus' best illusion wouldn't hide the fact that he's a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Saralegui. People would start getting suspicious the moment he banged someone with an elbow that shouldn't have been able to reach that far." 

If anything, the bristling got worse. "Since when are _you_ in charge here?" 

"Since no one else is trying to do anything constructive and my life is on the line here," I snapped, planting my hands on my hips. "If you have a better plan than this, then spit it out. I'm all ears." 

"Yuuri's the Maoh, not you." 

"If there is an alternative plan that Yuuri-sama wishes to make use of, we are at his disposal," Geneus said evenly. "However, the current circumstances do not play to his strengths. He cannot charm, or even attempt to negotiate with, Yelshi-original if we do not locate him first." 

"I could try to talk to Vetruan, I guess," Yuuri added, "but even if I convinced him to let Shouri go, it wouldn't change the promise that Shouri made. And when you make a promise, you're supposed to see it through." 

It was a typical naive, Yuuri-esque statement . . . but he did have a way of saying things like that with absolute conviction that got under your skin. Just like Mom. 

After that, the pieces snapped into place like Lego bricks. Alazon's initial declaration of regency went out while Saralegui was having his forehead painted by Geneus, using a seaweed dye that Beryes picked up during a quick trip to the market. Murata and Josak had gone off to fetch the sword and some of Yelshi's clothes, via one of the secret passageways Murata had found. That left the rest of us with nothing to do but sit and sweat—or, in Conrad's case, hold up the wall and smile blandly. It was almost enough to make me start up a game of hoket, but I forced myself to bottle up my anxiety, shove it to the back of my mind, and do some majutsu practice instead. The miniature raincloud I formed out of a couple of thimblefuls of water from the pitcher beside Alazon's washbasin attracted fascinated stares from Yuuri and even Wolfram as I sculpted it into a dolphin, then a horse, then a full-rigged sailing ship. I worked with that one for a while, adding details: wind filling the sails, sailors running about on deck, and a miniature Murata trailing a fishing line over the back rail. 

I looked up to see Geneus, now finished with Saralegui, silently watching me too. He smiled and gave me a nod of approval before sitting back down beside me. Then he sighed, pillowing his head on my shoulder, and closed his eyes. Within a minute, his breath had slowed and evened out as he attempted to catch that nap I'd promised him. I smiled and slid my arm around his waist, to support him and make sure he didn't fall over, all the time maintaining my cloud-ship. 

Wolfram nudged Yuuri. "You know, wimp, if you really find it that interesting, you could ask him to teach you how he's doing it." 

"It's just water," I said softly. "Little tiny bits of water, moving in formation. Precision training." 

"Not much use on the battlefield," Wolfram said dismissively. 

"War isn't the only thing majutsu is good for," I replied. "And a carefully placed and shaped fog bank _does_ have combat applications that are obvious even to me—it just isn't a direct attack." 

"Strategy can be more important than just killing people, Wolfram," Conrad added. "You know that." 

The bratty little blonde just snorted and—literally—turned up his nose at me, while Yuuri shook his head. 

_Disgusting,_ whispered a dark voice in my head. _He actually glories in his ignorance._

Geneus stirred, and I lost control of the cloud-ship as I stroked his maryoku reassuringly with mine. He turned a bit more fully toward me, muttered something incoherent, and seemed to drift off again. 

I picked up Tessen's harness and held the sword up in front of my nose. "If you wake up my fiancé for nothing, I'm going to toss this sword into the ocean and damn the consequences," I said—not loudly, but with considerable intensity. Vetruan didn't respond. 

"You really . . . are going to marry him, aren't you?" Yuuri said. 

"They _are_ engaged, wimp," Wolfram said, rolling his eyes. 

I sighed. "Yes, Yuuri, I am going to marry him." 

"Even though you're both guys? You know that people back on Earth are going to freak if they find out." 

"Most people don't care as much as you'd probably think at your age," I said. "High school gives you a distorted view of the world." 

"Still, I'd kind of thought that you would . . . you know . . . marry a girl over there, even if you were with him here . . ." 

I gave him a nasty look. "And keep my wife in the dark about my lover, I suppose? Live a lie on that side . . . and why, exactly? To justify your prejudice against gay marriage? Not a chance, _Yuu-chan_. Marry Wolfram or don't—it's your decision—but don't look to me for excuses. I'm not going to ruin three people's lives for something that stupid. Even if it's you asking." 

The way his shoulders sagged told me that I'd hit home. "But Mom and Dad . . ." 

"Mom won't care whether I marry a man or a woman, and you know Dad usually goes along with her," I said with more confidence than I felt, never mind that Murata had promised to back me up. 

"Auntie Rina . . ." 

" . . . has visited us _exactly once_ since we moved back to Japan from the States," I said. "And she never got along with Mom even when they were kids. If she doesn't approve, she can stuff it." 

"But Bob . . ." 

I rolled my eyes. "Is a lot more liberal than you would think. Yuuri, I am marrying Geneus. Any children I have will be his as well. Get used to it." 

"But . . ." Yuuri repeated again, hopelessly. 

The door opened, and Murata stuck his head in and said, "It's like I told you, Shibuya. They're completely head-over-heels for each other. Worst case I can ever remember seeing, and I've seen a lot of them. Give up and just go with it, because I don't think you're going to pry them apart." 

"But . . ." Yuuri said again. Then, in a rush, "If Geneus is in love with Shouri, and you both started out as the same person, does that mean _you_ have a thing for Shouri?" 

Murata snorted. "Not unless _she's_ been secretly cross-dressing all this time." 

"Friend-of-my-brother, you should be grateful that I don't have anything handy to throw at you," I said. 

"Which is why I was willing to say it," said Murata, with a smirk. "Anyway, we have quite a haul here—" 

"—and I'd appreciate you letting me into the room so that I can put it down," Josak said from somewhere behind him. Beside me, Geneus stirred and lifted his head from my shoulder. I hoped the foreshortened scrap of rest had helped him, at least a bit. 

The armload carried by the smirking blue-eyed spy consisted of more than just the sword and some clothes, however. I'd half-expected the jewelry, and the crown was . . . understandable, given whom Saralegui was going to impersonate, but balanced on top of the pile were three crumbling books, a bowl and a candlestick made of tarnished metal, and a globe of pure, jet-black . . . something. And each of the odd items was soaked in so much majutsu that it almost made the air vibrate. 

Murata lifted the six oddities from Josak's arms and set them carefully on a small marble table stuffed into a corner. The globe clicked against the stone, suggesting that it was made of something hard and nonmetallic. He put the crown beside them, and I belatedly noticed that it, too, was radiating majutsu. The other jewelry went on a second table, and Murata took the sword while Josak dumped the clothing on a chair. 

The young Great Sage went over to where Saralegui was sitting, and, balancing the sword across both palms, offered it to the young king of Small Cimaron, who accepted it with a gracious, opaque smile. When Murata stepped back, he rose to his feet, hung the weapon from his belt, and went to explore the stack of clothing. 

Geneus also stood. I got up with him, and followed him as he made four quick steps across the room to reach the marble table and its odd burden. 

My fiancé picked up the shallow, tarnished bowl and turned it over in his hands. There was something about it, about the incised design of coiling snakes—or maybe they were water dragons?—that plucked at my memory. 

A bowl, a candlestick, and a smooth, oval-shaped chunk of what might be stone . . . "These are like the ones you had on your desk back at Blood Pledge Castle," I said slowly. 

"Those were imitations of these, if I am not mistaken," Geneus said. "The originals must have been left behind when . . ." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head, but I could fill in the rest: _when my ancestors fled this place, and left Vetruan and those who trusted in him to face the danger alone._

He lifted the cover of one of the books with utmost delicacy. The writing inside wasn't in the script that I had so laboriously tried to master since I'd come to this world, or like any other script I was familiar with, for that matter—well, maybe it was a bit like Korean hangul, but I couldn't read that any more than this. 

" _En fitira midre os kalãn,_ " Geneus said, finger tracing the topmost line of text, and I felt a jolt as I recognized the final word, realizing that these might be the last books anywhere dealing with the Soukoku tradition of magic. "I think we had best leave these alone until they can be transcribed," he added. "The power woven through them is barely maintaining them—I am immensely surprised that they have survived this long in a readable, if fragile, state." 

"There were others that didn't," Murata said. "I found a lot of dust and parchment fragments. And I'm not sure what's in these—turns out my Telmorlan's rotted away pretty much into nothing over the past couple of thousand years. Couldn't even sound out the first word of the first one I opened." 

"Even if only one of them contains anything of value, our knowledge will be vastly increased," Geneus said, his hand gently caressing a rotting leather cover. 

Murata smiled ruefully. "That means less to me than it used to . . . but I figured you'd want to have them anyway. You know, I doubt I'll ever entirely understand what you've been through since you were revived, but over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really want you to hate me. Even though I'm not sure I'll ever be entirely comfortable around you." 

I recognized the sudden thinning of Geneus' mouth—there was something he felt obliged to say but also felt unhappy about. "Likewise. Being enemies . . . does our shared cause no good. As you say, I am not comfortable around you, but I feel I may be able to trust you in certain matters." 

Murata offered his hand, and Geneus reached out slowly and took it. 

"That's great!" Yuuri enthused. "I mean, it's kind of like you're brothers, almost, and brothers shouldn't fight or hate each other . . ." My brother trailed off as he was skewered by two flinty gazes. 

"Don't push it," I said. _If they're going to smooth things over, they have to do it because they want to, not because Geneus feels he should bow to the Maoh's wishes and Murata doesn't want to hurt his friend's feelings._

A soft, throat-clearing sound came from the other side of the room. "So, what do you think?" 

While everyone's attention had been focused on Murata and Geneus, Saralegui had selected some of his brother's clothes and changed into them—I think he might still have been wearing his own trousers underneath, but the stiff, gold-embroidered deep green tunic drew attention away from that. The holy sword now hung from a swordbelt of tooled leather, and the young king's hair was caught back in a gold-and-emerald clip. 

"Hmm." Murata circled this vision slowly, and Saralegui, clearly amused, let him. "You just need to fix . . . _this_." The young Sage reached out and plucked the violet-tinted glasses from their owner's nose, handing them to Beryes. "Perfect." 

Saralegui touched the bridge of his nose. "Hmm. That's going to take a bit of getting used to." 

"Actually, I like you better without them," my brother said. "It makes you look . . . more honest, I guess." 

Saralegui chuckled. "But Yuuri, I'm _not_ honest. Not one bit. Except when it's useful." 

A sharp knock on the door made us all jerk our heads upwards . . . except for Geneus, whose maryoku rippled, invoking wind and reaching out to quickly wrap around Wolfram. I probed through the door as Wolfram's hair suddenly lengthened and turned a paler shade of blonde. Whoever was on the other side of the door was indeed a Shinzoku—I could feel the pulse of houryoku—so I hope that Geneus would be able to maintain the illusion. 

"Come in," Saralegui called, still smirking. 

Whoever was outside the door hesitated for half a beat, and then opened it. Calmeth, and a quartet of guards. I forced myself to relax. It was all over if any of us looked nervous. 

_It's show time._


	41. Interlude:  Big Brother's Dilemma

Saralegui has never spoken to him, except for a few meaningless politenesses exchanged in front of a hundred witnesses. Indeed, he has barely even seen him. The only reason he knows that Yelshi wears his hair this way is that Murata approves of his appearance—his imposture—but how can he pretend successfully when he doesn't even know what he's pretending to be? And at the same time, he cannot afford to make an error. 

He has never felt like this before. Never felt this shocking, bone-deep _need_ to protect someone. What has Yelshi stirred in him? He doesn't understand, not at all. He feels entirely at sea, and yet he cannot falter. Not now, with everyone's eyes on him. 

He can't even lean on Beryes, because Yelshi doesn't have a Beryes. He had thought he was alone, but his twin has been even more so, so much so that it's difficult for him to imagine how Yelshi must feel. He can't give any sign that he wants his uncle to move forward into his usual position beside and behind, that of a guardian and advisor. He can't turn to look at Yuuri, with his bright and gleaming eyes, because Yelshi barely knows Yuuri. And really, what does Yuuri have to offer him in this case? The young Maoh is cute in a puppylike kind of way, but it's his helpers that are the useful—and dangerous—ones: Weller, the scruffy spy, the two Great Sages, and Shouri. The Sages, especially, see too clearly, and one of them is training Shouri as hard as he can. They do have an odd relationship, those two, mentor to student as well as lover to lover. In their case, it seems to work enviably well. 

There is another pair of eyes piercing his back that belongs neither to his uncle-retainer nor to one of the Mazoku, however, and that is the one that makes him most uncomfortable of all. 

_As for me, I never had a mother._ He doesn't understand her, and it isn't the same kind of not-understanding that lies between him and Yelshi. She has been following him around whenever possible; he has been studying her, and she still makes no sense. She isn't a fool, and she shouldn't think that a few weeks of concern can make up for the years she spent ignoring him. Perhaps it's just that she wants their reconciliation so very badly that she's willing to grasp at straws. 

But right now, it's the people looking at him from the front that he has to deal with. How odd to see them without the familiar purple tint intervening . . . but Calmeth is Shinzoku too, able to shrug off his suggestions just as Beryes can, and the guards aren't that important. 

He smiles sweetly—his smile and his brother's are exactly the same—and says, "Is something wrong?"


	42. Chapter 33

Red faces, I observed, did not go with Shinzoku-blonde hair. Not one bit. 

"Wrong?" Calmeth echoed through gritted teeth. " _Wrong?_ Perhaps you would like to tell me what's _right_. I forbade you to meet with these people. I forbade you to speak with them. And now I find you here, with them, and your rooms in disorder . . . what am I supposed to think?" 

Saralegui's smile never faltered. "You were my regent, Lord Calmeth, not my keeper. And incidentally, what were you doing in my rooms?" 

"Looking for you, you blasted young fool! I thought someone had made off with you!" 

"Oh? And why would you think that?" Everyone, except possibly Yuuri, knew that the young king's charming-idiot act was just that: an act. And yet Calmeth couldn't call him on it. Even if Yelshi was underage, he was still a king, and there was a limit to how much disrespect the older man could offer him. 

Calmeth took a deep breath and made a visible effort to calm himself. "Your Majesty, no one knew where you were, and your rooms look like they have been ransacked. The logical conclusion was that there had been a struggle and you had been kidnapped. I was terrified. Please forgive my disrespect." 

"I wished to meet with my new regent, and since the guards were yours and you had forbidden them to let me move about freely, I couldn't tell them where I was going. I expect the condition of my rooms is due to someone visiting them with kidnapping in mind and being angry when they failed to find me—I was certainly not aware of it until you told me." 

Calmeth picked up on the important part this time, although he'd missed Saralegui's first, more subtle, cue. "New regent? You—" 

His gaze found Alazon, and the (former? I still wasn't sure) queen rose to her feet and took six quick steps across the room to place her hand on her son's shoulder. 

"It is my right," she said. "Do you dispute it? I will challenge you for it, if you feel it is required." She said that so calmly that it took me a moment to realize exactly what she had said. 

The other Shinzoku looked like he'd swallowed something bitter. "As you say, it is your right." 

"Excellent," Saralegui said. "We will have to make an official announcement, of course—both of the change in regency, and of the fact that my mother, with the aid of Shin Makoku, has found the holy sword and returned it to our country." He touched the hilt of the weapon hanging from his belt, still blandly smiling. 

Calmeth went white. "How did you . . . how could you . . ." 

"It wasn't that difficult to find." Saralegui's smile widened slightly. "Much easier than coming up with a good explanation for why it was hidden inside the palace, or learning who stole it from my brother after stabbing him and leaving him for dead in a back alley in Shin Makoku's capital city. Fortunate that our uncle was already looking for him, isn't it?" 

"These accusations are preposterous!" 

Saralegui raised an eyebrow. "Accusations? Well, if you want to take them as such, I suppose I can't stop you." The young king looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, and maybe he was, although I doubt the real Yelshi was ever far from his mind. "You'll arrange the announcement for this evening, of course . . . and by the way, how did you get back here so quickly? We weren't expecting you until midnight." 

"When I received the message about your quarters being disturbed, I signaled one of the offshore picket ships and had it bring me back," Calmeth said through gritted teeth. "Clearly there was nothing to worry about. We will hold the announcement in the throne room in an hour. You and you—" He pointed to two of the guards. "—put yourself at the disposal of His Majesty." 

The Shinzoku noble yanked the door shut, and there were footsteps in the hall. I sagged, just a little bit. Murata did too. And Wolfram abruptly reverted to being Wolfram, and not Saralegui. 

"Well, we've got an hour," Josak said, with incongruous cheer. "Any ideas on how we handle things if one or the other Yelshi shows up in the throne room?" 

"I just hope that someone knows where the throne room _is_ , because I have no idea," Saralegui said, rubbing absently at his wrists. 

"Are the cuffs on that thing giving you trouble?" Yuuri asked. "It's gotta be stiff as a board." 

Saralegui blinked. "No, it's just . . . my wrists ache, for some reason." 

"You should have said something," Beryes said, and reached out to touch his charge, healing light gathering around his hands. After a moment, he frowned. "There is no damage that could be causing this." 

Geneus and I exchanged a glance. Neither of us had forgotten how Saralegui had babbled his twin brother's thoughts, when he'd had that fever on board the ship. Was this more of the same? More to the point, what else could it be? 

"We can use this to our advantage," my fiancé said. "If there is still a point of contact between them, we should be able to use King Saralegui to find his brother." 

Saralegui blinked. "Wait, you think I'm getting phantom pains from Yelshi, somehow?" 

Geneus shrugged. "Mazoku twins with strong maryoku are often bound by a psychic linkage, and maryoku and houryoku are not dissimilar powers. And it was clear you were receiving your brother's thoughts when your illness on board ship had lowered your defenses." 

"That would explain . . ." Saralegui was frowning. 

"Sara, whatever it is, you don't have to worry about it. We'll help you," Yuuri said. 

The king of Small Cimaron offered my brother an insincere smile. "Oh, don't worry, Yuuri, it's nothing. It's just . . . I have these very vivid nightmares occasionally, of barren, desert country, and I just realized where they must have come from." He looked at Geneus and me. "How can we use this?" 

"The simplest method would involve putting you in a trance. With your ego subdued, we should be able to draw part of Yelshi's consciousness through you temporarily, and ask him what has happened. There are also techniques for tracing such a linkage, but I do not have the power reserves to attempt them safely at the moment. Since your brother is still alive, however, I have every hope he will be safe until tomorrow." 

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" Yuuri asked. 

"Me to sit down, probably," Saralegui said. "Not that it's impossible to stand while in a trance state, but it isn't unusual to lose your balance when you're coming out of one." 

"I won't ask how you know," Yuuri said. 

"Interviews," Beryes said tersely. 

"Our former Royal Mage was unhealthily curious about the Forbidden Boxes, you see," Saralegui said, settling himself on the nearest of the several metal-framed chairs. "We never did find anyone skilled and trustworthy enough to replace him. That's why Beryes has been the unofficially official Royal Mage of Small Cimaron for the past couple of years." 

"Oh," Yuuri said. He didn't sound very enlightened—he never had been good at piecing things together from sidelong hints like that. 

Beryes knelt in front of his nephew. "May I?" 

"Do you think there's anyone else I'd trust to do this to me?" the young king asked. "Go ahead, Beryes." 

The older Shinzoku cupped his nephew's face between his hands, staring deep into his eyes, and Saralegui went still, eyes glazing over. 

"Can you hear me, Saralegui?" Beryes asked gently. 

A pause. "Yes." 

"Good." The older Shinzoku didn't really look like he felt it was good, though: his expression was quite grim. On the other hand, I didn't think I had ever seen him smile. "I need you to find Yelshi." 

"My . . . brother." 

"Yes. He cannot be very far away. Find him." 

Saralegui frowned. "Dark." 

"Your Majesty?" 

"It's dark. Where Yelshi is." 

"What else?" Beryes prodded gently. 

"Mmh. Rough floor. They've shackled my hands above my head. Wrists hurt. Smells of wine." 

Beryes' frown deepened. "Wine?" 

"Wine," Saralegui confirmed. "Maybe beer, too. I don't know much about beer." 

"Can you—can Yelshi—hear anything?" 

The young half-Shinzoku tried to shake his head. "It's quiet. They've left us alone in the dark. Yelshi's frightened. He's never had anything like this happen to him before. Trapped and alone and he can't use houjutsu . . ." Saralegui was shaking now. "So frightened," he repeated. "We have to save him." 

Beryes looked at Alazon, Murata, Geneus, and me in turn. I couldn't think of anything else to ask, so I shook my head, and each of the others did likewise. 

"That is enough," Alazon's brother said to his nephew. "Return to me now, Your Majesty . . . Saralegui." 

Saralegui's eyes flickered shut. He drew a deep breath before opening them again. "Beryes. Anything useful?" 

"It sounds like he's chained up in an old wine cellar," I said. 

"With houjutsu-absorbing shackles," Murata added. "It's a miracle you managed to get through to him." 

I raised my eyebrows. "You sound worried, friend-of-my-brother. I thought you didn't really care about Yelshi." 

"I'm not _sexually interested_ in him," Murata corrected. "But I'm still worried. He's a good kid, and a good zhiba player, and I consider him a friend. Although he's probably going to want nothing to do with me after he finds out I've been stringing him along," he added ruefully. "Even if it wasn't exactly my idea." 

I felt a frosty sensation of hate slide through my mind, and glared at Tessen again. "Stuff it," I told Vetruan. "It isn't Yelshi-the-younger's fault that you died, all those years ago. He isn't the one who tortured your wife and burned your palace. Harming him for something his ancestors did wouldn't be just, and you know it. I'm willing to take on Yelshi-original for you, to fulfill my promise and because he's dangerous, but I'm not willing to harm an innocent. Period. Justice is one thing, but I'm not willing to be the instrument of your revenge." 

_You take a great deal on yourself. Boy._

"Someone has to," I said firmly. 

"If you do not trust the _man_ who took up your task of his own will to do what is right," Geneus added, "perhaps you had best choose another agent . . . if you can find another who is willing." 

There was no response from the sword's tenant, and I snorted. "You know, I think I really would rather have Morgif than that thing." 

Murata snickered. Josak grinned. Beryes raised his eyebrows. 

"That's because you don't know Morgif the way I do," Yuuri said, with an odd expression on his face. "I mean, at least Tessen can't bite you. Right?" 

"Morgif's actions are at worst a mild irritant, Yuuri-sama," Geneus pointed out. "By contrast, what is locked within Tessen can be as dangerous to its wielder as it is to everyone else." 

Yuuri blinked. "I guess . . . but are you sure you want him hearing that?" 

"I doubt anything we have to say about him would surprise Vetruan all that much," I said. "He isn't stupid." Although one or two things from the dream-sequence of his death suggested to me that he might have some interesting blind spots. 

"If we could get back to the matter at hand?" Saralegui asked, with a rare trace of irritation. "A wine cellar. One that wouldn't get visited all that often. Possibly on the palace grounds. Beryes?" 

"There were four wine cellars in the palace at one time," the big Shinzoku rumbled. I didn't bother to correct him by saying, _at least five_ , since the third wine cellar of five thousand years ago didn't matter in this context. "That I know of. Only the one nearest the kitchens remains in use." That the one we were looking for had to have dropped out of use fairly recently, given that it still smelled of wine, went without saying. 

"Great," I muttered. Then, more loudly, "Josak, I think this is going to have to be your job. So you'll be missing the fun in the throne room." 

"Thank Shin'ou, since I'm not enough of a masochist to enjoy formal ceremonies," Josak drawled. "I think I know where to find two of the empties, and Beryes-sama can help me with the other one." 

After a quick conference between the two men, Josak left the room. That again left the rest of us with nothing to do but sit around and look uncomfortable. Alazon smoothed her skirts a little too often, and Saralegui tried to tug his tunic straight several times, making the hem more and more crooked until Beryes batted his hands away and fixed it for him. I ended up asking for a lesson in how to read the Telmorlan characters, just for something to do. Murata insinuated himself into that, followed by half the rest of the population of the room: Saralegui, Beryes, even Conrad and Josak. Alazon stared out the window, and Yuuri and Wolfram argued about something stupid that I think had to do with bearbees. 

And then the knock came and everyone froze in mid-word or mid-gesture. This was it. 

The servant Calmeth sent to fetch us led us on a winding path through the ground floor of the palace—more winding than I thought was strictly necessary, really, which made me wonder just how much of the building had been closed off, all those years ago. 

_Why am I so nervous?_ I wondered as we approached the double doors that had to open onto the throne room. _I'm just going to be standing in the background while the Shinzoku talk. Hell, technically I don't even need to be here—it's just that I don't want to wait for someone to come back and tell me what happened._

I'd been hoping we could split off from Saralegui and the other Shinzoku before we got too far inside, but the room was packed. Every Shinzoku noble in what, judging from the maps that Calmeth had briefly shown us during the negotiations, wasn't a small country, had to have made for the capital at high speed. The only open space was at the front around the throne, and along the aisle connecting the throne to the doors, so we had little choice but to follow Alazon straight up it, and then do our best to fade into the space behind the throne. 

Saralegui-as-Yelshi seated himself on the throne without prompting, with Calmeth and Alazon standing in front of him, side-by-side, and Beryes behind the throne, hands hovering menacingly over his swords. 

"My lords and ladies, it is with deep regret that I announce . . ." 

I tuned out what Calmeth was saying in favour of watching the crowd. I was kind of worried that we were doing the political equivalent of kicking a hornet's nest, and the fact that the alternatives were worse did not make me one bit less nervous. 

There were a lot of surprised faces, not a few satisfied ones—mostly older—and several angry-looking ones at a variety of ages. Terruzos was near the front, and I was surprised to see him frowning. I would have expected to _want_ Alazon as regent, if he couldn't return her to the throne. 

Kellellan was near the front too, and his expression was one of incandescent outrage. His nearest neighbours shifted uneasily, trying to move away from him as yellow-green foxfire flickered over his skin, and his mouth worked soundlessly as Calmeth wrapped up his speech. 

It wasn't until Alazon drew in a breath to speak that he seemed to get himself enough under control to actually say anything. "And so we are to give our great nation over to the control of a woman who has spent the last fifteen years in foreign lands? Who has _married_ a foreigner?" 

"She has returned the holy sword to us," Calmeth said, through gritted teeth. "Beside that, nothing else matters." 

Kellellan laughed, eyes bright and feverish. "So the bitch brings you a fake sword, and all of a sudden you're tripping over each other to honour her." 

"You are out of line," Calmeth said. In the silence, I could hear his teeth grinding together. "Be quiet, or I will have the guards remove you." 

There was a touch of insanity in Kellellan's smile. "Do you honestly think they could?" The flickering yellow-green fire flared around him, and the people around him drew even further back, crushing up against each other. 

"It isn't a good idea to fight in a room full of people," Yuuri said into the tense silence, and Murata hid his face in his hands. I was tempted to do the same. "We should be able to talk about this." 

"Talk?" Kellellan said, in a soft, dangerous voice. "The time for talk ended the moment you and your kind were received into this kingdom as _guests_." He spat the word out as though it tasted bad, and raised his hand, gathering a ball of light in his palm. Cursing inwardly, I stepped in front of Yuuri and made my own aura flare up. Conrad and Josak drew their swords and closed in to either side of me. 

Two young Shinzoku men pushed their way through the crowd and grabbed Kellellan by the elbows. There was a conversation in hissing whispers. Kellellan went purple, then white, then purple again, before his face faded to something like its normal colour. Then he looked up at Yuuri, and smiled in a way that was more like a baring of teeth. 

"I challenge you to a duel of power, little foreigner. If you win, then we will . . . talk." Apparently Kellellan didn't like that word any more than he did "guests". "However, if _I_ win, you and yours will leave this country forever." 

"Yuuri-dono cannot accept your challenge," Beryes said instantly. "He is not yet nineteen." 

Kellellan smirked and spread his hands. "Then he must appoint a champion, or forfeit the duel and leave Seisakoku." 

"A champion? Without knowing the rules?" Josak inquired of the world at large. "That doesn't seem fair." 

"The rules are very simple. We fight with houjutsu until one or the other of us yields or is unable to continue." Kellellan's smirk never wavered. "The combatants must be of age. Oh, and fighting with anything _other_ than houjutsu is an instant loss—sometimes a fatal one." 

_Shit._ Alazon couldn't fight while she remained regent—it would be political suicide. Neither could Saralegui, at least while he was masquerading as Yelshi, for the same reason. That left only Beryes, and he wasn't under any obligation to risk himself for Yuuri's sake. 

"I will accept your challenge, then, if Yuuri-kun permits." 

I bit down on my tongue, hard, to keep from shouting something along the lines of, _Are you insane?!_ Geneus must have felt the sharpness of my gaze, though, because he glanced at me briefly before turning to face Yuuri. 

"Geneus-san . . ." 

"I promise you that I will not lose," my fiancé said, with another momentary glance at me and a smile. 

"All right, then, but please be careful, okay? If you got hurt, I'm not sure what Shouri would do." 

_Turn that little poseur into meat paste,_ I thought. 

In the back of my mind, I could hear Vetruan laughing.


	43. Chapter 34

He didn't even wait until we were back in our room. Instead, the moment we were out of public view, he wrapped his arms around me and drew me into an alcove. 

"I am sorry," he said, before I could start yelling at him. "I know that you worry, beloved, but it had to be someone. Asking Beryes-dono to volunteer would have been impolitic, and Murata is centuries further separated from his houjutsu skills than I. I have no doubt that I will prevail against that mannerless puppy, given a houseki of sufficient quality . . . and houseki are not in short supply here." 

The _mannerless puppy_ bit made me smile—Kellellan's parting shot had been, _I'll see you in the courtyard tomorrow at noon, pervert_ —but the word _houseki_ made my stomach flip over. 

"Can you even handle a houseki without making yourself sick?" I asked. 

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine so that our breath mingled in the space between our bodies. "I do not claim it will be pleasant, and yes, it will likely make me ill . . . but nothing worse than that, I promise you. Systemic damage would require more than a few minutes of casting. Although I must admit that I do not intend to attempt breakfast tomorrow. Trust me, beloved." 

"If I didn't, I'd be sitting on you, not discussing this calmly," I muttered, and saw him smile. "So . . . we're going to hit the market for a houseki while everyone else either does politics or looks for Yelshi?" 

"So it appears." He didn't, I noted, even suggest that he could go to the market alone. I guess he understood that I needed to fuss over him a bit. 

"We should go back to our rooms first." I'd left my sword there on the way to the throne room—the one that could actually be used as a sword, not Tessen, which was still strapped to my back. Wearing both blades at once really was awkward, but if I was going out in public, I wanted the steel one there. _Gone completely native,_ I thought with a grimace. 

"As you wish." Geneus brushed a kiss against my jaw before sliding gracefully out of the alcove. 

The news of the duel must have spread through the palace quickly, because people turned and stared at us in the halls as they hadn't done since the first day, and they were all looking at Geneus. I tried not to be too jealous. 

The servants had clearly visited our bedroom, because the bed was neatly made, not rumpled and stained and smelling of sex. If the covers hadn't been smooth, we might never have noticed the item sitting squarely in the middle of the mattress . . . although we certainly would have sensed it, because the reddish chunk of houseki was powerful. 

Geneus picked it up and did something that made the air in the room vibrate sickeningly. "Unflawed," he said. "And of considerably better quality than has come out of Svelera in recent centuries. But an odd choice for a courtship gift, nonetheless." 

"Looks like your secret admirer just won't take a hint," I said. "What do we do this time? Destroy the setting?" The stone had a twist of wires around it, ending in a loop that would have allowed it to be hung from a chain. 

"That would likely be the best choice. And it will save us a trip to the market, since we are not likely to find anything better there." I could tell from his expression that there was still something bothering him, though, and I had a feeling that I knew what it was. 

"The coincidence is almost scary, isn't it?" I said. "Even if whoever-it-is was in the throne room when Kellellan made an idiot of himself, and he—or she, I guess—had the houseki on him for some reason, he has to have guessed you would need it and come here immediately to leave you the stone." 

"And why would he have had it on him?" Geneus asked the stone, now resting in his lap. "My observations of Alazon's behaviour suggest that Shinzoku do not need houseki for ordinary houjutsu castings, and therefore do not normally use them except when creating enchanted artefacts. Why would one of them have a crystal set as jewelry, even a perfectly formed one of this size? It makes no sense . . ." 

I swallowed. "Unless he meant to give it to you all along, which means that he knew about the duel in advance. Which means . . . one of Kellellan's handlers?" 

"Unless they were also primed in advance." My fiancé frowned deeply. "I cannot help but feel that someone is laughing at us." 

"Someone is," I said sourly, twisting around to look over my shoulder and nearly crossing my eyes in an attempt to bring Tessen's hilt into focus. 

The corner of Geneus' mouth quirked up. "Other than him, I mean." 

I sighed in exasperation. "All these layers, all these factions . . . it's giving me a headache. Politics, conspiracies, ghosts . . . I think I want to go back to hunting for Originators in the backwoods of Cimaron. And to think that I've been _training_ for this kind of crap." 

"This _is_ a tangle of more than the usual amount of complexity," Geneus admitted. "One does expect an underlayer in politics, but there is more than one of those here, and I am not absolutely certain that we have found the bottom even now." 

"Turtles all the way down," I said, flopping down beside him on the bed. "Wonderful." 

"'Turtles . . . '?" 

"It's the punchline of a joke," I explained. "An elderly woman claims that the world stays in place because it's balanced on the back of a giant turtle. She's then asked what the turtle is standing on, and says something like, 'You're very clever, young man, but it's turtles all the way down!'" 

Geneus snorted. "I think we can be certain that, in this case, the series is finite." 

"Yeah, but it isn't finite _enough_." Kidnappings, duels, swords, factions, ghosts, unwanted love-gifts . . . "You know, I would have thought we'd go straight from the throne room to wherever the sword used to normally be kept. Instead, Saralegui's still wearing the thing." 

"Attempting to use that sword might kill the wielder," Geneus said. "In King Saralegui's case, I believe the danger is small, but if there is any chance of failure at all, Alazon would not want witnesses . . . especially witnesses who would then say that she had killed their king. The complications that would ensue if Yelshi was then discovered alive are . . . mind-boggling. No, she will do nothing in that regard until she knows that both her sons are safe." 

"Let's just hope that Josak doesn't get himself caught again," I said, and shifted restlessly. The waiting was always the worst part. I'd long ago disciplined myself to handle it, but I doubted I would ever enjoy it. Searching for something to talk about, I came up with, "What are you going to do when we get back to Shin Makoku?" 

"Other than get married and raise our children, you mean?" He said it quite matter-of-factly. I was the one who blushed. 

"Other than that, yeah." 

Geneus shrugged. "A country at peace always has room for another administrator. I was good at that, once, and the last thing I wish to do is set a bad example by throwing myself on the Maoh's charity." He smiled, a touch wryly. "Your brother would no doubt consider that a low ambition and a boring future, but I have had my fill of adventure for the time being. I would like a few years of peace, of creating things, sustaining and guarding them and watching them grow . . ." 

"I can understand that." And I could—Bob would never have chosen me as his successor if it hadn't been in me to help and protect people. Leadership without compassion is just tyranny. "I don't know how Yuuri can even think of adventure as fun, after some of the crap that's happened to him in this world." He'd even taken a brief trip through the ass-end of Cimaron on the edge of winter, come to think of it, during that business with the Great Games. Although from what I'd heard, that trip had been in the snow, not cold rain and ice pellets and mud that thawed just enough around noon to coat horses and riders alike in a layer of frigid glop. So maybe Yuuri hadn't been as uncomfortable as us, even if he'd probably been colder. 

"He is still young enough to be immensely resilient," Geneus said. "And I recall another young man who volunteered to chase assassins through the backwoods of a strange country on the edge of winter." 

I flushed. "That's different. I didn't do it because I thought it was going to be _fun_." 

"And do you think your brother is not also convinced of the necessity of his adventures? Yuuri-sama is naive, not stupid—he is your brother, after all." 

I had to admit, Yuuri's naivete was . . . downright aggressive. "Are you still going to call him 'Yuuri-sama' after we're married?" 

"Not unless he wishes me to. Shouri, may I ask you to rotate your position through ninety degrees so that I may lay down too? It has been a very long day, and I fear that Lieutenant Gurrier may once again disturb us unexpectedly before the night is over." 

In the end, we both stripped down to our underwear before cuddling together under the blankets. We hadn't had any supper, but I didn't care. Being hungry would have taken too much effort. I let myself doze, feeling the warmth of Geneus' breath where he had buried his face in the vulnerable crook of my throat. 

Over the course of hours, I drifted into deeper sleep, into . . . 

_"This would be the perfect time for you to make your escape." I forced myself to form the words precisely, without slurring, even though weakness dragged at my body, pulling me down into darkness. The strength of my will alone was keeping me functioning . . . keeping me alive, for my current mistress had no use for broken tools._

_I knew he would not go, despite my words. This young Soukoku had a fair level of control over his facial expressions, but his eyes . . . those eyes told me everything. A deeply compassionate man. I might have known him for the Maoh's brother even if I had not been told—not because of their shared appearance or their massive power, but because of the traits of personality that spoke of a common rearing. They had both been deeply loved all their lives, that was clear, and passing that warmth on to others was as natural to them as breathing . . . although the elder brother was more controlled than the Maoh himself._

Why could I not have met you years ago? What I could have taught you, had we met when I was truly myself and not just a fractured copy! _There was just something about this young man that I found enormously appealing, something in the depth of his eyes, the clarity of them . . ._ I find it absurd that he has no interest in you. _And there it was again, the pain that swelled behind my breastbone whenever I allowed myself to think of the Double-Black Great Sage, the true inheritor of what had been my soul—the one who had stolen everything from me without so much as lifting a finger._

_I had never hated anyone with such intensity before. Not the Originator. Not the villagers who had chased a young Soukoku away from their homes and families by pelting him with sticks and rubbish. Not even those who had ended one long-ago life of mine by burning me at the stake. In every case, I had been able to summon, if not compassion for my enemies, then at least some perspective, a certain level of indifference. But not for him. Not ever for him. And the emotion terrified me, for if the true Great Sage had never felt such things, that indeed made me nothing more than a failed copy . . ._

I came awake all at once as someone landed on top of me, squishing the breath out of my lungs—not Geneus, who was still curled against my side, but someone else. Someone who smelled of metal and sweat and made faint clanking noises as he got down off the bed. 

"Eheheh . . . sorry about that, Shouri-sama, but this was the only place I could get back into the building without being seen and chased again." 

"We did suspect you would turn up tonight, Lieutenant Gurrier, although perhaps not quite in this fashion," Geneus said as he sat up. There were some indeterminate noises, the faint light falling from the sliver of moon outside was cut off, and, a moment later, a ball of fire flared up, floating just above our heads. He'd closed the shutters, I saw. "Are we to understand that you were caught? Again?" 

Josak scratched the back of his head. "Well, not _exactly_. I mean, it wasn't the palace guard that spotted me—that I could've talked my way out of, probably—it was the light wolves." 

Light wolves? Somehow I didn't think he meant the results of a lupine diet-and-exercise program. Question was, were these things more dangerous than normal wolves, and what were they doing running around an inhabited building? 

Geneus was frowning. "I think you had best begin from the beginning—or would you prefer to wake the Maoh or Lord Weller first?" 

"I'll find the captain when I leave. Waking the boyo probably isn't necessary yet . . . or wise." Josak looked uncharacteristically serious. "Anyway, the short version . . . the first two wine cellars were empty. That left me with the one Beryes told us about, that had been used to store a couple of racks of booze for the private use of the guy who was king before Alazon. It isn't easy to get to, which, I gather, is why he used it. So I'm sneaking down some twisting, dusty little hallway in a weird not-quite-a-floor that's half above and half below ground—maybe the building sank or something, I dunno—and all of a sudden I hear this crackling growl and something glowy with lots of big teeth came around a corner up ahead." 

"And you ran away," I said. 

"Shouri-sama, I'm hurt that you think I'm such an incompetent! No, I got that one," Josak said, tapping the hilt of his sword. "I had to chop it apart half a dozen times before I could get rid of it, though. I got a little further forward, stuck my head around the corner . . . and found out that there were seven more of them, and they didn't look happy. Or sound happy, either, especially not once they spotted me. _That_ was when I ran, 'cause I couldn't see myself getting in forty _more_ kills before one of them killed me." 

"I am surprised that you escaped," Geneus said. "Light wolves normally track their prey without rest until they take it." 

"In that case, these ones weren't acting normal, 'cause they wouldn't get near me when anyone else was around. Seemed like they didn't want anyone to see them. So I went through the laundry, and then the barracks, and then I got up on the roof. Told the guards I had a bet on with my squadmates that I couldn't spend the entire night up there—seems like people do stupid crap like that just as often in Seisakoku as in Shin Makoku or Big Cimaron. I stayed up there until it started to get dark, then started working my way over the roofs to the palace proper, figuring that any light wolf that wanted to try its luck would stand out like a flying lantern. Your suite has easier roof access than the captain's, and if I dropped in on the boyo without a chaperone, Little Lord Brat would skewer me and roast me over a slow fire, so . . . here I am." He shrugged. 

"Albeit not for much longer. I do not think it wise to do anything further tonight with regard to this." 

"You've got a plan," Josak said, with a knowing grin. 

"Of sorts," Geneus admitted. "Go find your captain, and your bed. I will explain in the morning." 

We waited until the outer door of the suite had closed firmly behind Josak before extinguishing the light and crawling back into bed. 

"What do you intend to do?" I asked my fiancé softly, as he cuddled up against me once more. 

"Myself, nothing. It is clear that Yelshi-younger must be in the room Josak could not reach. Dealing with light wolves efficiently requires either majutsu or houjutsu, and the optimum time to do it is during the duel tomorrow, when everyone will be distracted." 

"Beryes," I said, after a quick process of elimination. 

"Precisely. He can beg off from the duel under the pretext of nursing Saralegui through a sudden illness, and do it without looking too suspicious." 

Which thankfully also got us out of providing a fake Saralegui. 

"Somebody put those light wolves there, didn't they?" I said. "What are light wolves, anyway?" 

"They are formed by the last blast of magic from a houjutsu mage dying by violence—soulless creatures of pure power. They get their name from their vaguely canine form . . . although that form is not inevitable, since I have heard of light bears and light eagles. Left alone, they display something that is more than animal cunning, but less than full intelligence, and tend to be locked into fighting whatever battle their creator was engaged in at the time of his or her death. They can be controlled using houjutsu, but the power involved is considerable." 

Which didn't help much, given the number of powerful Shinzoku here. 

I kissed Geneus on the forehead. "Go to sleep. We both have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." 

"Mmm." My fiancé kissed me on the chin, and slowly relaxed into sleep. I stayed awake for quite a while, though, staring into the dark and trying not to think about the duel, or about what could happen during it. 

_I don't see how I can help you this time. Please, please be okay._


	44. Chapter 35

The next morning dawned bright and clear, just like the morning of every other day we'd spent in Seisakoku. Before coming here, I'd never thought I'd get to hate nice weather quite so much. 

We both skipped breakfast. I don't know about Geneus, but I was too nauseated to eat. The knowledge that he was going to be putting his life at risk, and I couldn't help him, and that it was all because of that conceited Shinzoku idiot Kellellan gnawed at me until I felt like I'd swallowed a rat. But I didn't want to add to my fiancé's worries by saying so, either, so I held it all in, choking the words back as we dressed for the day. 

I should have known that I wouldn't be able to hide it from him for long. When I began to comb out my hair, fingers grasped my wrist and gently pulled the comb from my hand. 

"If it is any consolation, I would give the duel over to Heike in a heartbeat, were he but here," Geneus said, as though continuing a conversation we had begun some time before . . . and perhaps, in a way, we were. 

I licked my lips as he began to gently untangle my hair. "I'm sorry. I . . . I just wish . . ." 

"You want to help." His fingers brushed the nape of my neck just above my shirt collar. "I am pleased that you value me so much . . . and even more pleased that you will not attempt to stand in my way." 

"I want to," I admitted. "Badly. But I also know that there's no way you would let me, and I'm not about to force you—especially when I don't have an alternative plan that doesn't involve either Yuuri or me going into Maoh Mode and having to fight the entire nation of Seisakoku for the right to stay here. Or forcing Alazon to intervene on our behalf, and adding to that mess." 

"We might be able to comply with the letter of the challenge by sending your brother and possibly the young von Bielefelt back to the ship alone, since the ship is technically the sovereign territory of Small Cimaron . . . but given your brother's temperament, I suspect he would then proceed to do something reckless." 

"You're probably right," I admitted. Yuuri never had had much in the way of impulse control. 

Geneus put the comb aside, and his hand came to rest on top of my head. "If you will permit, I would like to braid this." 

"Only if I can do yours." He'd left his hair up that night, as he usually did when we weren't making love, and I was sure it could stand to be combed out. 

"As you wish." 

It was definitely a little weird that I enjoyed playing with his hair so much, I reflected as his fingers flickered in and out of my peripheral vision. And it was equally weird that I enjoyed having him do it to me. I'd thought of it as a hair fetish, but that wasn't really right, because I wasn't so much turned on by it as I was . . . just enjoying the intimacy, I guess. The quiet time alone with him. 

_This is not going to be the last time,_ I told myself as he tied off my new braid and we switched places. He was going to win the duel, and we'd have years, _centuries_ , in which to make a morning ritual of this. Even if I had to cut my hair off at some point after I got back to Earth, I would still be able to do his. 

His hair turned out not to need much combing, but the braiding turned into a comedy of errors that had him smiling and me laughing so hard that my hands shook and Geneus had to finish the job himself after all. I had to laugh, though. I was more frightened than I had thought I would be, and I knew that if I didn't laugh, I would cry. 

"Shouri. Everything will be well, I promise you. I refuse to be separated from you now." 

"I trust you," I said. "But . . ." 

He hugged me close, stroking my back, and I forced myself to believe that he was right, that everything _would_ be okay. Told myself that I was not going to go around in circles over this. 

The worrying part was another one of the things that dating sims didn't tell you about being in love—the games were set up so that you were supposed to worry about attracting and keeping your target, not about what happened to them. Not about keeping them safe. 

There was a sharp knock on the door. "Are you two almost ready? If you wanna talk to the others before the duel, it's gonna have to be now." 

"One moment," Geneus said, holding up Tessen's harness so that I could slip into it, then gliding over to the door to admit Josak. 

"Nice braid," Josak said, giving us both the once-over. "Are you _trying_ to encourage me to get into your pants, Shouri-sama?" 

I was going to sputter something along the lines of _like hell_ , but Geneus got there first. "If we ever become interested in a threesome, Lieutenant Gurrier, I assure you that you will be among the first to know . . . but I fear that you will have several centuries to wait." 

Josak laughed. "Yeah, I can understand why you wouldn't want to share—either of you. The others are waiting for you in the boyo's room." 

It turned out that Yuuri had indeed gotten a _room_ and not a suite, although it was thankfully a good-sized room, capable of accommodating seven people with miscellaneous proportions of Mazoku and human ancestry . . . and one uncomfortable-looking Shinzoku. It was understandable that Alazon and Saralegui hadn't been able to come, given that they were king and regent right now and Calmeth had to have set dozens of guards and servants to watching them, but poor Beryes was clearly unhappy to be separated from his charge. 

"So what's the plan?" Murata asked from where he was sitting on the bed. "Use the duel as a distraction while Beryes-san breaks into the area that Josak couldn't access?" 

Geneus' response was a single, thin-lipped nod. Yuuri looked from one of them to the other, clearly grasping that there was some sort of by-play going on, but not what it was. 

"Good," Murata said. "We're all on the same page, then. Although I was hoping you'd come up with something better than I had." 

"How could he?" Wolfram asked. "You're the Great Sage." 

"One of the Great Sages," Murata said easily. "And Geneus remembers a lot of things about this world that I've forgotten, after so many lives on Earth. I was hoping that that would include some obscure, yet helpful, trivia about light wolves, but I guess that was too much to ask." 

"I studied them only briefly, and abandoned that line of enquiry once I was certain that they could not serve my purposes," Geneus said. 

Murata nodded, his glasses reflecting light. "I remember." 

"Purposes?" Yuuri said, sounding puzzled. 

"He means destroying the Originator—the original Originator," I said. My hand made an odd, reflexive motion in front of my face, and it took me a moment to realize that I'd just tried to push the glasses that I hadn't needed to wear for almost a month back into place. 

There was a moment of uneasy silence, during which Yuuri looked at Tessen's hilt, poking up over my shoulder, and swallowed. 

"Well, um, we'd better get going, right?" my brother said. "I mean, sitting here isn't going to get us anywhere, and Mom always says that the sooner you start something, the sooner you finish it." 

"That doesn't quite work in this case," I muttered, but everyone was already moving. 

The courtyard where the duel was to take place had once been shaded by several large trees . . . or at least that was what I thought the round openings worked into the pavement were for. The earth underneath them seemed to have been disturbed more recently than the hard-packed stuff under the other paving stones, but not a trace of wood remained. They'd grubbed out even the roots, and left the courtyard open to the sun, which was falling through a stone lattice to cast fantastic shadows on the far wall. 

Kellellan was there already. For all I knew, he might have been waiting for hours. I hoped he had, anyway. He'd foregone his usual, more formal clothing in favour of a pair of plain trousers and low boots that, to my eye, looked like they'd been carefully polished to hide old scuff marks. Heavy gold arm rings banded each biceps, and he scowled out at the world with a hostility that rivaled Wolfram in one of his jealous moods. 

Geneus, standing opposite him, made him look both underdressed and too flamboyant at the same time, which was a nice trick if you could manage it. My fiancé's smile was one of the ones that sometimes pissed people off: not the bland diplomatic one, but a sly quirk of the mouth that hinted smugly at hidden secrets. I had no doubt it was carefully chosen to get a rise out of Kellellan. 

There were several moments of silence, but I'd seen a slave, a bony, naked boy, disappear back into the palace the moment we'd entered the courtyard, so I had a feeling we wouldn't have too long to wait. I'd counted to a hundred and twenty-nine when a large double door swung open to admit Saralegui (still in his role as Yelshi), Alazon, Calmeth, old Terruzos, and a handful of other Shinzoku who spread out around the edge of the courtyard. 

Terruzos continued on around the edge until he was standing right next to me. "Lord Shouri, if I may ask, where is Lord Beryes?" 

"Tending to King Saralegui," I said, with a shrug. "He fell ill during the night. I'm not sure of the details, but he did suffer a serious injury not all that long ago, and was bedridden with fever afterwards—maybe this is a relapse." 

"Ah." From the inflection of that syllable, it seemed that Terruzos believed me, or at least was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. 

"This gathering will come to order." Alazon's voice, amplified with houjutsu, washed through the courtyard with surprising force. "We are here today to witness a duel between Lord Kellellan Metrith and Lord Geneus of Shin Makoku, championing Lord Yuuri Shibuya, also of that place. However, it is not our way to prefer bloodshed over peace, and so I am required to ask: is there no way an agreement can be reached between you?" 

"My principal and I have no grievance toward Lord Kellellan and would prefer that this be resolved in an amicable manner," Geneus said. "We do not require any compensation if the challenge is withdrawn." 

"I have no interest in negotiating with foreign _filth_ ," Kellellan spat. 

There was a long pause before Alazon spoke again. "Very well. It appears that no reconciliation is possible. My lords, prepare yourselves." 

Kellellan's aura crackled into existence around him. Beside me, Lord Terruzos snorted, clearly unimpressed. Geneus just widened his stance a bit, and moved his left foot slightly forward. The houseki, I knew, was inside his shirt, pressed up against his ribs. If it had been me, I probably would have checked its presence with my fingers, but he didn't seem to think it was necessary. 

I didn't so much see Kellellan's initial attack as sense it—there was a faint shimmer in the air, a sickening feeling of houjutsu, and Geneus was pivoting smoothly to the side as _something_ passed through the space where he had been standing. 

Fire erupted from my fiancé's hand as he counterstruck. Kellellan did dodge that, but the bolt passed close enough to leave a red mark on his left arm, just above the gold ring. The young Shinzoku bared his teeth, and said something in a language I didn't recognize, although it was clear from his tone that it was some kind of curse. 

The rain of fireballs that followed made _me_ swear and quickly throw up a wind-based ward in front of me (and in front of Yuuri, Murata, Conrad, Josak, and Terruzos, who raised an eyebrow in my direction, but overall seemed to approve). I was willing to bet that Kellellan had aimed in our direction on purpose, too, in the hope of making Geneus do something stupid. The young Shinzoku wasn't quite as foolish as he looked. My fiancé, however, hadn't even glanced at us. He trusted me to defend myself. 

Kellellan's next attack was a single fireball. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be target-seeking, because when Geneus dodged it, instead of plowing into the courtyard wall, it came around for another pass. My fiancé raised his hand as he dodged again, and there was a sudden swirl of wind. The fireball plowed into the ground as every particle of grit or sand in the courtyard was pulled into the air and swirled viciously around Kellellan, tearing at his flesh and forcing him to close his eyes and cover his face with an arm as he struggled to create some sort of protection. 

The whirlwind died the moment his shields extended—Geneus wasn't going to waste energy on an attack that couldn't connect. At least Kellallan looked like he had a raging sunburn over most of his exposed skin. 

"You're going to pay for that," the young Shinzoku growled. It was the first time he had spoken since the duel began. 

Geneus raised his eyebrows. "Forgive me, but I am inclined to doubt that." 

He raised his hand, and suddenly there was a loud explosion. I looked frantically around until I realized that the noise hadn't come from inside the courtyard. Instead, it probably had something to do with the puff of dust that was rising from deeper inside the palace. 

Everyone had frozen. Alazon's face was white, and I saw Saralegui mouth something that might have been, "Beryes!" 

Geneus recovered before anyone else, but instead of doing something about the unexpected interruption, he flung houjutsu at Kellellan, cocooning the young Shinzoku in crimson fire and toppling him to the ground. Kellellan let out an inarticulate roar of rage and struggled frantically, but he couldn't wriggle loose, or seem to muster any houjutsu of his own. 

"I believe that concludes our duel, as my opponent seems unable to continue," my fiancé said aloud, with a sharp glance at Alazon, who blinked and came back to herself. 

"As you say. Our congratulations on your victory, Lord Geneus, Lord Yuuri." I saw Yuuri start—had he forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be the Maoh right now? 

Geneus bowed. With an elaborate hand gesture, he released Kellellan from his houjutsu cocoon. The young Shinzoku glared at him, but Geneus ignored him, standing stiffly, as though he thought something was going to fall off if he moved too much . . . as thought he was fighting pain. 

I pushed my way past Wolfram (who gave me a glare to rival Kellellan's) and Murata to reach my fiancé's side, my focus already extended to probe him for injuries. There didn't seem to be anything physically wrong, but his maryoku was all bunched up and roiling inside him, and I stroked it with my own, trying to soothe it. In the background, I could hear Alazon giving orders to some of the guards, but my attention was focused on Geneus as his power slowly calmed itself . . . and then I swore softly as I realized that my brother was gone too, along with Conrad and Josak. 

"I need to catch up with Yuuri," I told Geneus. 

"Then let us go," came the calm reply. "I am well enough now, although I should not attempt majutsu for some hours if we can avoid it." 

Suddenly, a voice rose above the murmuring of the crowd. "I am not staying here if Beryes and my brother are in danger. Nor do either of you have the right to keep me. Or . . . do I have to use this? After all, it's good for more than restoring fertility to barren lands." 

"Your Majesty . . . bad enough that your foreigner-brother and your uncle may be in danger, but you—" 

Saralegui sighed. "Lord Calmeth, I do not have time for this. Get out of my way." 

"Let him go," Alazon said, unexpectedly. "I doubt we will be able to keep him here for long in any case. His father was . . . of very similar temperament." 

Saralegui ran. Two of the guards who had stayed behind peeled out after him, and Geneus and I followed the trio back into the palace and through a tangle of passageways. The young king of Small Cimaron seemed to know where he was going, and I wondered how he'd gained such detailed knowledge of the layout of the palace—subconscious transmission from Yelshi? I was lost after the third turn. 

We emerged from a side door into another, smaller courtyard, skidded around the corner of a building, and nearly ended up in a pile on the ground when some unexpected rubble appeared. Something had blown a hole in the palace's outer wall, creating an arena for combat that was much larger than the space Geneus had just been fighting in. 

On the far side, Beryes stood in front of a disheveled figure who could only be Saralegui's brother. The big Shinzoku had both his swords drawn, and his chest was heaving with exertion. Facing him were eight glowing, sinuous creatures that had to be the light wolves. Between us and them were the other Mazoku. Conrad, Josak, and Wolfram all had their swords drawn. Yuuri, behind them, was glowing faintly. Murata was gripping my brother's shoulders and speaking a steady stream of words that seemed to consist mostly of repetitions of "No" and "Don't do it, Shibuya". 

"So what's the optimum method of dealing with light wolves using majutsu?" I asked Geneus. 

"Wind," came the brief reply. "They will disperse if they can be sufficiently disrupted." 

"'Disperse'? Not die?" 

"Strictly speaking, they are not alive in the first place." 

"Oh." 

Before I could concentrate on wind, though, I heard the sound of metal rasping against metal. Saralegui had drawn the holy sword, and in his hands, it glowed with golden light. He slipped between Conrad and Josak, and pointed the sword at the light wolves. 

"Get away from my brother." 

About half the creatures turned to face him. The rest kept their attention on Beryes and Yelshi. Saralegui frowned. He was facing mostly away from me, so I couldn't get a good look, but I still thought it was the most honest expression I had ever seen on his face. 

"Get _away_ ," he repeated, and the ground began to heave. Vines shot up from under the rubble. One of them hit a light wolf squarely, and it dispersed with a yelp. The others dodged, scattering in various directions, and I flung up a hasty shield to deflect one that tried to jump over Wolfram, which would have put it directly on top of Yuuri. Another one leaped at Beryes, who hit it with both his sword and a wave of houjutsu, shearing it in half. 

The remaining six formed a defensive circle, and I knew that taking them out wasn't going to be easy. With Beryes and Yelshi on the other side of the creatures, we were going to have to calculate the angle of any attack carefully to avoid hitting them. 

I took a deep breath and concentrated, forming something like a multi-bladed wind-guillotine with my mind and slamming it down on top of two of the creatures. They fell apart in pieces. Saralegui moved in on the remaining four, making Beryes visibly grind his teeth, and suddenly I didn't have a clear shot anymore. 

Swordplay might not have been the young king's strongest suit, but he wasn't nearly as incompetent as he had pretended when I had sparred with him in the ballroom of his own castle. A solid swing of the glowing blade sheared through another light wolf. That did leave him open on the left, though, and I heard a gasp from Yuuri in the instant before Wolfram stepped forward to cut down the light wolf that had been eyeing said opening. It re-formed almost immediately, of course, but it had lost its momentum. 

The heads of the three remaining creatures were shifting from side to side, and I wasn't sure whether they were looking for a way to attack or a way to escape. Conrad and Josak lunged forward suddenly in near-perfect unison, shredding two of them and giving Saralegui an opportunity to nail the third. Then one of the shredded ones made the mistake of coalescing again right in front of Beryes. 

The last light wolf reappeared on the roof of the building across from us, and I flung wind at it. It howled as it dispersed. _Done._ I let myself sag a bit. With all of us working together, it hadn't been _hard_ , exactly, but the tension had exhausted me. 

Saralegui sheathed his sword and began working his way across the unstable, vine-riddled rubble to Yelshi and Beryes. Yuuri began to follow him, with Murata, Wolfram, Conrad, and Josak strung out behind. 

Yelshi hugged Saralegui the moment his twin was within touching range. Saralegui looked surprised, but he also tentatively returned the hug. 

"You're all right?" he asked his twin. 

Yelshi nodded. "Thanks to you, I guess. If you hadn't sent Uncle Beryes after me . . ." 

"I was worried about you," Saralegui admitted, and shook his head, as though in wonder. "I've never really felt . . . _responsible_ for anyone before, I suppose is the best way of putting it. It's very odd. Perhaps Lord Shouri and his attitude toward being an older brother are rubbing off on me." He chuckled nervously. 

"I think it looks good on you." Yuuri picked his way cautiously over a particularly tricky bit of rubble. 

It all happened so quickly. It wasn't surprising that the rubble was unstable, or that there was an open space underneath it—we'd been in the caverns, after all—but that it should give away right _then_ , directly under my brother, seemed like a downright malicious coincidence. 

Conrad, of course, leaped forward with a cry of, "Yuuri!" But he missed his grab for my brother's hand, and everyone else, including me, was further away. 

There was a popping noise beside me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geneus vanish. He reappeared a moment later, with Yuuri clutched against him, and set my brother down gently. 

"Geneus . . . thank you," my brother said. "You really saved me—I mean, the ground must have been at least fifty feet down . . ." 

My fiancé bowed. "I am pleased to have been of service, Yuuri-sama." 

Then he coughed. A slightly startled look crossed his face for a moment, then modulated into a grim smile as he coughed again. 

"Are you all right?" I asked, already extending my focus over him. His maryoku was bristling again, and there was fluid building up in his lungs, and was that a burn, low on his ribs, where the houseki was nestled up against his body? 

I came to a horrifying understanding of what had happened just as Murata said, "You can't teleport like that using majutsu—it's an advanced houjutsu technique, and coming on top of the duel . . ." 

I wrapped my arms around Geneus just as his knees gave way, frantically working at his maryoku and trying to get it to settle down, terrified that he might have done himself permanent damage. 

Then he sighed and lost consciousness, and I felt something begin to crack open at the bottom of my mind . . . Gritting my teeth, I fought it, telling myself that small amounts of power properly applied were more likely to save my lover than a raw explosion of majutsu. 

"Shibuya's-big-brother— _Shouri_ —listen to me! His life isn't in danger so long as we can keep his lungs clear! Keep him upright and try to stop the bleeding!" 

"Stop the . . . can Shouri really do that?" Yuuri asked. "I mean, it's a bit more selective than just healing . . ." 

"He's a water-wielder and he's been training on delicate manipulations. Plus, Geneus shouldn't be touched with houjutsu right now—it might make him worse. So Shouri is his best chance." 

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to blot the conversation from my mind and concentrate on majutsu. Geneus' maryoku was quieter now, quivering, and I started to work on his lungs instead, one tiny capillary at a time, teasing the blood back to where it belonged and healing up behind it. 

I think I would have fallen over and taken Geneus with me before I was done if Josak hadn't grabbed me by the shoulders, steadying and supporting me. 

"Thanks," I said as I pulled my mind and maryoku back into my own body. My voice sounded hoarse, almost raspy. 

"Don't mention it, Shouri-sama." For once, there was no ironic note in Josak's voice as he said my name. "Need some help getting him to bed?" 

I nodded. "I'm going to have a hard time carrying myself, never mind him." I didn't want to let go of Geneus, but it was the most logical thing to do under the circumstances. 

"Right you are." Josak scooped my unconscious fiancé up in his arms. I wouldn't have thought he would have been able to carry a grown man very far like that by himself, even with those biceps of his, but I soon discovered that I had underestimated him. We made it back inside the palace, past a growing mass of guards and servants, down three short corridors and around two corners to our suite, where Josak laid Geneus gently on the bed. I dragged the nearest chair up right beside it and collapsed onto it, only then realizing that everyone had followed us in and was now milling around the main room of the suite. Yuuri, looking sheepish. Conrad and Wolfram, watchfully bracketing my brother. Murata, inscrutable, his glasses hiding his eyes. Beryes, dusty and disheveled, looming behind his nephews like a bulwark. 

"I'm glad we didn't bring Gwendal," I muttered, because having that scowling face in the room on top of all the others would just have been too much. Josak snickered. I pinched the bridge of my nose. _Pull yourself together, Shouri. You've got maybe five minutes to question Yelshi before Alazon, Calmeth, and about thirty guards show up. Make it count._ "Yelshi—Your Majesty—what happened? How did you end up imprisoned that way?" 

"I'm sorry, but I honestly don't know," Yelshi said. I felt a scream of frustration clawing its way up my throat, and swallowed it down again. "Someone hit me over the head from behind, and when I woke up, I was . . . there." 

"And no one bothered to look in on you until Beryes showed up?" 

A hesitation. "There was one person. Shinzoku, maybe older—I'm not really sure. He gave me water. But I don't know who he was—he was wearing a mask, so I never saw his face. There was something familiar about him, though." 

It was better than nothing, but only just. Shinzoku, male, older. _Let's see what we can add to that._ "How tall was he? What was he wearing? Did he speak?" 

"I . . . um . . . average height. For one of us. His clothes were . . . clean. No patches. Trousers, sandals, sleeveless shirt . . . He had a scar on his arm." Yelshi drew a line diagonally across his left forearm, just above the wrist. "It was old, though, so you had to look closely to see it. He never said anything." 

"So we round up every male Shinzoku in the palace and have them roll up their sleeves?" Josak suggested. "That might take a while." 

Yelshi's mouth firmed. "We don't need to round them up—I can _order_ them to come to the throne room and be inspected. I _will_ order them. I doubt anyone will dare to refuse." 

"Not once you use this, anyway." Saralegui had slipped out of the holy sword's harness. He placed the scabbarded blade in Yelshi's hands and folded his twin's fingers around it. 

"You're giving me . . . Are you sure?" 

Saralegui smiled crookedly. " _You_ are the king of Seisakoku, and thus the sword's proper owner. I'm the king of Small Cimaron, and we don't deal in magic swords there. Beryes, give me my glasses, would you?" He held out his hand to the side and behind without even looking at the older Shinzoku. Beryes pulled the (miraculously unbroken) glasses from a pocket and placed them in his nephew's palm. Saralegui perched them on his nose. "I'm going to have to do something about this, I suppose, just so that people don't get confused," he said, touching his forehead. 

"Your Majesty, if I may . . . ?" Beryes said. 

Saralegui shook his head. "I don't want you using your power on such trivia when you've already expended most of it in a fight. We don't need you fainting right now." 

Beryes made a shallow bow. "As your Majesty wishes." 

"There's an easier way, anyway," Josak said. "My makeup kit's in the captain's room. Be right back!" 

Wolfram snorted as the door to the outer room closed behind the spy. "I wonder if he realizes that any foundation he has is going to be the wrong colour to match Saralegui's skin . . . What?" he said irritably as Yuuri, Yelshi, and Saralegui himself all turned to stare at him. 

"I'm just surprised you know so much about makeup," Yuuri said. 

Wolfram jerked his chin up, looking down his nose in his best aristocratic-selfish-brat manner. "Just because _you_ can't be bothered to take any care with your appearance or your dress unless Günter practically _forces_ you—" 

My brother nodded sagely. "Oh, I get it—Lady Celi didn't stop at just putting you in dresses, did she? She made you wear makeup, too." Yuuri took his fiancé's hands between his. "It's all right, Wolfram. I understand." 

Wolfram blushed bright red and made sputtering noises. "You stupid wimp! That isn't what I meant at all!" 

I sighed and shook my head. Yuuri was just so damned oblivious sometimes. I wondered if he even understood why his fiancé was blushing. 

"Were it not for the von Bielefelt's tendency toward physical violence, I would say that they deserved each other," said a soft voice, and I turned in my chair to find that Geneus' eyes were open. 

I couldn't help the smile, or the way I caught my hand in his, twining our fingers together. "Are you all right?" 

My fiancé nodded. "Although I think I will foreswear houjutsu for a few years. My apologies for worrying you." 

How many times had we played this sequence out now? Apology, forgiveness, and physical affection as each of us proved to himself that the other was still there, still _real_ . . . I leaned down and kissed him. He parted his lips for me, his hand caressing the side of my face . . . and the door to the hallway opened. I tried to ignore it, but there was also an insistent voice rudely drawing my attention. 

"What in the name of the Founder was _that_ all about? Why is half the palace wall lying on the ground as rubble? How did your Majesty come to be in that state, and which of you is . . ." Calmeth concluded the last question, if that was what it was supposed to be, with a series of odd sputtering noises. Reluctantly, I broke off my kiss with Geneus and turned back to face the main room. 

"You really can't tell us apart? I would have thought it would be obvious which of us was which," said Saralegui, adjusting his glasses—a calculated gesture to draw attention to them, I was sure. Actually, if I hadn't been able to see his mouth moving, I wouldn't have been certain which of the twins was speaking either. They even had the same accent, which made me wonder if a young Saralegui had patterned his pronunciation after Beryes'. 

"You _falsified_ the Mark of Anointment—" 

"Lord Calmeth. Sara was kind enough to look after my affairs for me while I was . . . unavailable. Everything he has done, he did on my behalf . . . and really, he has just as much right to the throne of Seisakoku as I do. His power is equal to mine—can't you feel it?" Yelshi met Calmeth's eyes steadily. It was only if you looked down and saw his thumb stroking the pommel of the holy sword that you might realize he was nervous. 

"He has corrupted you!" 

Yelshi shook his head. "He has shown me what I can be—what I _should_ be. A strong king, a king who supports and protects his subjects . . . not your damned puppet." 

The expression on Saralegui's face was odd. I would have expected him to be flattered and amused when Yelshi described him that way . . . or maybe not. Maybe he had enough humanity left in him to both want his brother's good opinion and be embarrassed about gaining Yelshi's approval under false pretenses. It was so easy to forget that Saralegui was just a kid, only a year older than Yuuri. 

_When did I start feeling so old?_ I wondered, looking down at my hands—strong, sinewy hands, with palms lightly banded with callus from the sword practice Josak had been putting me through. 

Another hand, narrower, the pale skin lightly tanned, came to rest lightly on my wrist. Geneus said nothing, made no other move, but I could _feel_ that he understood. 

"Enough." Alazon's voice was so level that it was almost flat. She entered the outer room of our suite with gliding steps and positioned herself beside Beryes . . . which, perhaps not so incidentally, put her between Calmeth and her sons. "You are not in authority here, Calmeth." 

The older Shinzoku looked like he'd just gotten a mouthful of that horrible tea of theirs, but he gave her a shallow bow anyway. 

"Brother," Alazon continued, "I thank you for recovering my son. Yelshi, you are unhurt?" 

"Bruises and scrapes," Yelshi replied. "I'll be fine." 

I rose from my chair—I didn't want to risk doing this part sitting down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geneus swing his legs over the edge of the bed, which was good. I always felt more confident with him standing at my shoulder. "Lord Calmeth, would you please roll up your sleeves?" 

Calmeth's head jerked up, and his expression went from irritated to furious. " _What?_ " 

"All we know about the people who kidnapped your king is that one of them is an older Shinzoku male with an old scar running diagonally across his forearm," I explained. 

"And you suspect _me_?" Clearly, he was right on the edge of exploding and I had to defuse it, fast. Which meant the last thing I should say was _yes_ , even if it was the truth. 

"And we need you to set an example for the other lords," I lied smoothly. "If someone of your standing makes it clear that _demonstrating_ their innocence is important, the rest of them will fall into line. Come to think of it, maybe it would be better to do this publicly, in the throne room, after we've rounded up the other candidates." 

"Why do you consider this any of your affair, Mazoku?" 

I shrugged. "Because King Saralegui clearly considers it _his_ affair, and my brother is fond of King Saralegui. Also, because I'm trying to untangle a knot. The theft of your holy sword resulted in quite a bit of chaos in the outside world, and there's still a chance that it might happen again. There are forces at work here that none of us entirely understands." In the back of my mind, I heard Vetruan chuckle darkly, but I was getting better at ignoring him. "For instance, were you even aware that you have half of the central ground floor of this palace blocked off?" _And I hope that gives you topic-change whiplash. I want you reacting, not thinking._

Calmeth blinked. "What?" 

"There's a large section of this building whose entrances have mostly been mortared up," I said. "Geneus and I found what might be the last remaining entrance door in a back corridor, concealed by some very powerful houjutsu. We're pretty sure it's been that way for thousands of years . . . ever since your ancestors slaughtered the Mazoku who ruled here before them." 

"The Dark Ones," Yelshi murmured. "I always suspected it was more than a legend." 

"How can you be sure these . . . these hypothetical people were Mazoku?" Calmeth asked. He was starting to sound a little desperate. 

"They left a few things behind," I said. "Which you've been concealing, for some reason. _En fitira midre os kalãn_ —sound familiar?" I had to concentrate to make sure I got the words right. 

Calmeth flinched. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Three books and a bowl, a candlestick, a stone, and a crown," I said. "All infused with majutsu, and all hidden in the same place as the holy sword . . . which we know was in _your_ hands right before it turned up there. You may not have known exactly what they were, but you must have known _something_." 

The Shinzoku shook his head—not in negation, but as though he was trying to get something to fall out of it. "He told me not to touch anything." 

"'He'?" 

"The Founder," came the reply from between gritted teeth, and I felt a surge of satisfaction. 

_Finally, we're getting somewhere._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will start to unravel a little more quickly now, I promise.


	45. Chapter 36

"He came to me first in a dream," Calmeth said. "He said . . . well, it scarcely matters now, does it? It was all most likely calculated to play to my desires, my . . . ambitions." 

_Which you don't want to tell us about,_ I guessed, _or you would be willing to repeat every word._

"How long ago was that first dream?" Geneus asked. 

Calmeth flinched. "Twenty-three years ago. Immediately after my father died." 

"And he told you that he did not approve of Lady Alazon's plan for the country, and that you—" 

"Yes," the Shinzoku interrupted. "All of that. He put me in contact with . . . certain people." 

"Who helped you to steal Yelshi from his mother," I said. 

Calmeth didn't say anything this time, but his guilt was written clearly on his face. 

"And when I wouldn't do what you wanted, you decided to break my spirit," Yelshi said. His scowl looked odd, maybe because I was so used to seeing Saralegui's bland smile on an identical face. 

"No! I had nothing to do with the kidnapping." Calmeth unfastened the mother-of-pearl buttons holding the cuffs of his shirt shut—with some difficulty, since his hands were shaking, but no one moved to help him—and rolled the sleeves up to reveal his forearms, which he held out for inspection. There wasn't even a hint of a scar on either. 

"That only proves you weren't the man who brought me water," Yelshi said. "It doesn't prove that you don't know him." 

"I don't! Please, believe me . . ." 

"He may be telling the truth," Geneus said. "I would suggest that we keep him under guard while proceeding with the inspection of the other Shinzoku in the castle who fit our scant description." 

_If not him, then who?_ I wondered . . . but I had a sneaking suspicion that Geneus was right. Yelshi-original was _old_ , probably the oldest continuous consciousness on the face of either world. He'd be good at subtle, multi-part plans with long gestation times, so it was as likely as not that Calmeth was there to draw suspicion away from someone else. 

There were two hundred and eighty-three adult male Shinzoku who either lived in the castle or entered it regularly, and the guards brought them into the throne room in groups of forty and told them to roll up their sleeves. There were some arguments, and I wasn't really sure whether Calmeth's presence, flanked by two guards, was such a good idea. 

We did find a couple of men with scarred forearms—military officers, and one fellow who'd been gashed in a fall while rock climbing—but each time, Yelshi shook his head. 

The last group the guards brought in consisted of only twenty-seven men. I frowned, but kept my peace until the last of them were cleared, at which point Josak preempted me and pointed out we were sixteen short. 

Calmeth cleared his throat. "Terruzos had planned to leave this morning to return to his own lands, along with his household. He only stayed as long as he did in order to witness the duel." 

"And there are a couple of men who went down to the city this morning," added one of the guards. "Don't worry, Your Majesties, my lords—we'll get them when they come back." 

"Terruzos," I muttered. Could it be? I tried to remember the courtyard at the moment that Beryes' fight with the light wolves had distracted everyone from the duel. Terruzos had been . . . startled, yes . . . and . . . horrified? 

_It could be._ And yet . . . twenty years of living a lie? Or had it been a lie? Even Yelshi-original would have wanted the holy sword back, so his pawns might have supported . . . _Arrgh!_

"We need a lure," I said softly. "If we keep on playing around on the edges of things like this, without knowing exactly what the strings we're pulling are connected to, more people are going to get hurt. We need to get Yelshi-original out in the open _now_. I just don't know how." 

"There is a method," Geneus said grimly. "I had hoped not to have to use it, because it amounts to kicking a wasp's nest, but I am beginning to think we have no choice." 

"What method?" I asked. 

Geneus raised his hand and a wind-wall gathered around us, isolating us from the rest of the room and ensuring that we wouldn't be overheard. "We goad him. Yelshi-original is a political isolationist; therefore, if we can convince Alazon to sign a treaty that would keep the borders open and encourage foreign commerce, he might choose to act." 

"Or he might have something set up in advance to deal with that possibility," I pointed out. 

"That is one danger." 

"There're others?" 

My fiancé nodded. "If the treaty never gets back to Shin Makoku, it would be just as though it were never signed, would it not? And we are not an army. I would suggest that you start carrying water with you, and encourage your brother to do the same. That way at least some of us might escape." 

"You really think it's that serious?" 

"If we proceed with this, it will be." 

"Shit. I don't see what else we can do, though." 

"We will need to talk to your brother first, regardless." 

"I don't want Yuuri involved," I protested. 

"We cannot—I _will_ not—bind Shin Makoku to a treaty that goes against the will of the Maoh. And there is this as well: it is inevitable that your brother will discover what we are planning and do something . . . impulsive. If we inform him in advance, we have some chance of controlling that impulsiveness." 

"I suppose," I said. "It's just that . . . I've been trying to protect him from everything for so long . . ." 

"It goes against your grain to tell him difficult truths, even when you know it is in his best interests to do so. Which is why I am not offering you a choice." A quick kiss on the cheek took any sting out of the words. "First, however, I believe we should convince everyone that it is time for a late lunch, as noon was more than two hours ago. After that, we will speak to Yuuri—and to Alazon. I would also like Lord Weller to be there, since he likely knows more about the current state of politics and trade in Shin Makoku than anyone else in our party." 

I had the good sense not to mention Murata as an alternate possibility . . . and really, given the way the younger Sage spent most of his time at the temple, how much _could_ he know? 

After a meal of cold poached fish and salted bits of seaweed fried in oil that tasted and crunched like potato chips even if they were green, Geneus requested the meeting. Somehow I wasn't at all surprised when most of our other allies invited themselves along: Yelshi, Murata, Wolfram, Josak, Saralegui, and (since his charge had decided he wanted to be there) Beryes. Vetruan's brooding presence at my shoulder made an even dozen people in the room when Geneus and I closed the wind-wall. 

" . . . and so I feel that we must sign some form of treaty immediately," Geneus concluded his presentation, "or at least give the appearance of being about to do so. It is a risk, but we have reached the point where there is risk on all paths. If we do nothing, Yelshi-original will continue to tug at our strings and make us dance for his amusement, and I think we are all agreed that that is not acceptable." 

Beryes frowned—more than usual, I mean. "I wouldn't be so certain. We may not regard the founder of our nation as a god the way you Mazoku do, but he is nevertheless . . . respected." He glanced over at Alazon, where she sat in a high-backed chair. 

"I did indeed once respect him," the former queen said. "But that was many years ago. How could I possibly follow a man who wishes to kill my sons?" 

"And as for me," the younger of those sons said, "I am not a puppet, and right now I wish you had named me something—anything—else." 

"Well, you can always pick a new name," Yuuri said. "I mean, my mom likes to be called 'Jennifer' even though her real name is 'Miko', and she gives people silly nicknames, like calling my dad 'Uma' because you can read one of the characters in his name that way . . ." 

Yelshi smiled. "I'll keep that in mind. But right now, we need to decide what we're going to put in this treaty. Just setting up a mutual nonaggression pact seems so . . . trite." 

"And not particularly useful for what we want," I put in. "After all, if Seisakoku closes its borders and the nations have no further contact, there won't be any aggression taking place. We have to go further than that. Mutual aid—the Maoh would insist on something like that—and some kind of trade treaty. Having you agree to join the Shin Makoku Alliance would be ideal, but it could also be a bit much to try to force on your people immediately." I watched Yuuri out of the corner of my eye, but other than nodding when I said "mutual aid" and again for "Shin Makoku Alliance," he didn't react. 

"The Shin Makoku Alliance," Yelshi said slowly. "That's the group of nations that the Maoh drew together to oppose Big Cimaron, isn't it?" 

"Actually, his Majesty intended the Alliance as a large mutual aid pact and a forum for settling international grievances without armed hostility," Conrad said. "That most of the nations that have joined it have grievances against Big Cimaron is . . . largely coincidental." 

Josak cleared his throat. "What the captain means is that the anti-Big-Cimaron slant of the Alliance is mostly Big Cimaron's fault. Everyone's tired of their bullying." 

"Despite that, the Maoh did offer them membership in the Alliance at one point," Murata added. "King Belal turned him down." 

"And King Lanzhil?" Saralegui smiled angelically as he spoke. 

"Had a difficult time even holding a civil conversation with us in a diplomatic setting, as you know very well," I said. "Or maybe you just ticked him off by having inferior wine served." 

The Shinzoku halfbreed laughed. "That was an interesting evening, wasn't it?" 

"We are getting sidetracked here," Geneus said. "Are we agreed, in principle, to the inclusion of mutual aid in the treaty?" Nods all around. "Then we merely require some trade terms, to indicate as clearly as possible that the borders will be kept open. I would suggest a tariff reduction, to run for five years, on cloth from Shin Makoku entering Seisakoku, and on tin from Seisakoku in the reverse direction—judging from what I have seen here, you produce excessive amounts of tin, and the nearest mines to Shin Makoku are in Svelera, which is not well-disposed toward us. Is that acceptable?" 

Alazon glanced at Yelshi, who said, "Ten years. And the tariffs go to nothing. It's going to take a long time for our cloth industry to get back on its feet." 

"Agreed," Geneus said. "Do we have paper and ink here?" 

"You're going to draft it now?" Saralegui said, with raised eyebrows. 

"And sign it, if everyone is willing. We can then choose our time to announce it. I do not want to give our adversary an opportunity to plan or consider his reaction." 

I wasn't sure I liked Saralegui's answering smile, and I don't think Geneus did either, because my fiancé stiffened, just slightly. None of us said anything, though. 

It was Yelshi who found paper and ink and a quill pen, and Geneus used them to produce two treaty drafts on the spot. His script was a bit different from what I'd seen in the books I'd been using to learn to read—flowing, ornate, probably old-fashioned, and difficult for me to decipher. I was going to have to work on that. Mind you, phrases like "mutual aid and non-aggression" hadn't been overrepresented in my reading to date . . . 

Geneus handed one copy to Alazon and the other to Conrad, and from there they were passed from hand to hand around the room. 

Finally one of them got to Yuuri, who worked his way through it slowly, lips moving. At one point he stopped reading altogether, frowned, glanced at Murata, and pointed to something on the page. 

"It's a very formal, slightly old-fashioned word for the arbitration of a legal dispute," Murata explained. "You should know this stuff by now, Shibuya—hasn't Günter gone over that part of the legal code with you yet?" 

Yuuri rolled his eyes. "If he did, I fell asleep somewhere in the middle. Besides, Günter's sort of like a microscope: a lot of the time, he focuses on one particular detail and ignores everything else." The description made Josak snicker, even though the spy couldn't possibly know what a microscope was. 

"Lord Shouri, Lord Geneus . . . surely you don't have to solicit the opinion of every member of your party before you can sign this treaty," Yelshi said. 

Saralegui blinked, and then smiled slyly. "Oh, that's right—I'd forgotten that you don't know. Yuuri there is the Maoh." 

Now it was Yelshi's turn to blink. The young king froze in place for a moment, then turned to look first at me, then at Yuuri. 

"I do see a resemblance, now that you mention it," he said slowly, "but I have to ask—what is he doing here?" 

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Mostly, he's here because I couldn't keep him from coming along. It was that or convince several people to sit on him, and even then he might have sneaked after us." 

"Are you saying that I can't worry about you?" Yuuri asked. 

"No," I snapped, "I'm saying that you've been extraordinarily lucky ever since you first arrived in Shin Makoku, and it's going to your head. Sooner or later, something's going to happen that kindness and the odd explosion of majutsu won't be able to get you out of." 

Yuuri set his jaw stubbornly. "So far _someone's_ always come up with a solution—if not me, then Conrad or Wolfram or Murata or—" 

"So now you're saying that _I_ can't worry about _you_?" I asked, and was about to add a lot more when Geneus touched my arm. 

"I understand the sentiment, beloved, but this is not constructive." 

_And I should keep my venting for when there aren't two foreign monarchs observing us, right._ "Yuuri, just finish reading that so that we can sign it, okay? We can't keep the wind-wall up forever." 

My brother bit back whatever he had been about to say—maybe he was growing up—and turned his attention back to the sheet of paper between his hands. No one spoke while he worked his way through the last few paragraphs. " . . . It's okay, I think," he said when he was done. "Should I be the one signing it, or—" 

I shook my head. "I don't think we should give away the fact that the Maoh is here after we've managed to hide it for so long. Why offer Yelshi-original another target? It's better if Geneus and I sign it on your behalf. Of course, if you really _want_ to sign it yourself . . ." 

Yuuri waved his hands in front of himself, palms facing out. "No, no, I'm good! You sign." 

And I did. In kanji, since I knew Yuuri had been signing himself _Shibuya Yuuri Haradjuku Fuuri_ since shortly after he'd taken the crown, and it didn't really matter if anyone could _read_ what I wrote. Geneus hesitated before writing something in an unfamiliar script—it might even have been his real name, the Great Sage's name. It certainly made Murata frown. Alazon and Yelshi signed more tamely and legibly. The former queen took one of the copies of the treaty, and Geneus took the other, rolled it up, and slid it inside his tunic. 

"There's one other thing we should discuss," Yelshi said. "We've already announced the return of the holy sword. I'm going to have to return it to its place soon—today or tomorrow—unless we can come up with a really good excuse." 

"I suggest for the time being that we announce the sword is being examined to ensure that it has not been perverted in some manner," Geneus said, "and that you do not wish to put the nation at risk by using it until you are certain that its enchantments remain entirely beneficial. We may need its powers for other matters than restoring the fertility of the soil." 

And maybe, just maybe, if we accomplished Vetruan's revenge for him, we could get him to lift the curse, and let the land return to its natural state, in which case the sword would no longer be necessary. I wasn't going to be the first person to bring that up, though, especially not when I was effectively wearing the bastard on my back. 

"Not to mention that we could end up making a terrible mess of Seisakoku before this is over," Saralegui said, "so you would just have to use it again." I gave him a suspicious look, but he wasn't smiling. Actually, he looked angry, in a very quiet and controlled way. 

"We don't know exactly what we're going to be facing here," Murata added. "Yelshi-original probably hasn't done anything but manipulate others in a long, long time. We don't know exactly what his powers are. We may find ourselves with the equivalent of a pissed-off, Originator-possessed Shin'ou on our hands. In which case I'm not sure we can win." 

"We won against Shin'ou," Yuuri protested. 

Murata exchanged a grim look with Geneus. "It took four thousand years to set that up, _with_ the help of the person we were fighting. Those are both luxuries we don't have this time." 

"We do, however, have two True Maohs, Morgif, the Seisakokan holy sword . . . and an Originator," Geneus pointed out. "Even then, that might have been enough." 

"Maybe. I wouldn't have wanted to try it, though." 

My fiancé's frown said that he wouldn't have wanted to either. 

Yuuri took a deep breath. "It'll be okay. We'll _make_ it be okay—right, Shouri?" 

I took a deep breath of my own, and nodded firmly. "Right." 

There were arrangements to be made, of course. It had to be official, there had to be witnesses . . . and I wanted Terruzos there, just in case he was carrying Yelshi-original around inside him like a tapeworm, but it would take a day or two to chase the elderly Shinzoku down and get him back here, assuming he wasn't so suspicious of us that he had gone into hiding. Really, the timing of his departure was damnably suspicious when you thought about it. Anyway, it was a long afternoon, and when we finally got back to our rooms after supper, we discovered it was going to be a long evening. 

The crumbling book lay precisely in the center of the marble-topped table in the sitting room of our suite. At first I thought it was one of the ones Murata had found in the hidey-hole with the holy sword, but a more careful study of the Telmorlan characters running down the spine told me that I'd never seen it before, although it was laced with majutsu like the others. 

"Another courtship gift?" I said out loud. "Damn, but whoever-it-is is persistent. You'd think they'd have gotten the idea by now." 

Geneus caressed the flaking leather of the binding. "They must have gone to considerable trouble to find this." The expression on his face was terribly conflicted, and I thought I understood why. 

"Destroying a historical artefact like that would be a crime," I said. "Can't we just tear a corner off one page and use it symbolically, like we did with the necklace and the houseki?" 

My fiancé shook his head. "While the destruction need not be total, it must be visible at a glance to properly indicate the rejection of the gift." 

"Slash the cover, then? We can have it rebound later." 

"That . . . might be enough. Thankfully it appears to be bound over boards, which is why the cover has warped." It had, too, curling protectively in toward the pages. When Geneus scored the leather with his knife, it pulled away as though under tension, leaving a gap like an open mouth through which the wooden board could be seen. He stroked the cover again as though in apology, then took it into the bedroom and stowed it in the chest with the other books that Murata had found. 

I put my arms around him as he stood up, and felt him almost vibrating with tension. With anger. 

"What's wrong?" I asked. 

For a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer. Then, very softly, "How _dare_ they put me in such a position? An irreplaceable historical artefact is not a toy or a bauble—how dare they, whoever they might be, use it so? They are trying to force my hand, and I am worried that the next gift will be . . . alive . . . Being forced to harm an innocent over something as _trivial_ as a fool's lust . . ." 

I hugged him tighter. "I won't let it happen, I promise. If I have to, I'll—" 

"No. No, Shouri, please. Inflicting pain on another creature in that way scars the spirit, and I want yours to remain unmarred for as long as possible. A little more damage will scarcely be noticeable on mine, given what I have been forced to do these past few years." 

"Don't you understand?" I whispered fiercely. "I don't want you _ever_ to be hurt again. Not in any way." 

A powerful shudder ran through him, and his arms wrapped around me almost convulsively. "You are far more than I deserve." 

"No, I'm not," I said. "After the hell you've been through, you deserve far more compensation than one stubborn man who loves you to the point of insanity." 

"Such devotion is without price." 

"Only if it isn't returned," I said, and began to tease gently at his pierced ear with my lips and tongue. 

That became a round of slow, sweet lovemaking, after which Geneus cuddled up against me and fell asleep with his legs tangled with mine and his face so close to my shoulder that I could feel his breath whispering against my skin. _I love you so much . . ._

Tomorrow, I told myself firmly, tomorrow we would take that damned half-forgotten necklace and trace it back to its origin. I would find out who was doing this to him, and I would convince that person to stop, one way or the other. 

I was going to protect Geneus, whatever it took.


	46. Interlude:  Shadows Walk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this, either several things will make sense, or you'll hate me. Possibly both.

Not this time, either. And he'd thought the book, a thoughtful gift tailored to the receiver's interests, would surely do it. 

Inwardly, he swears. Perhaps he has been something of a fool for believing he could separate the two Soukoku, after all . . . but the man who calls himself Geneus is just so _perfect_. Master mage, wise and thoughtful, an old and deep mind clad in an elegant body . . . The Mazoku is like a black diamond, sharp and glittering-bright and beautiful— _worthy_ , the first being he has ever seen who is worthy of what he has become. He did have a wife once, a fellow Shinzoku, and golden-haired sons, but it had been because he was expected to breed, not because he thought their union was in any way . . . appropriate. And how long ago was that, anyway? He can't recall. The years have piled themselves one on top of the other until he's lost all sense of how many there have been. 

Burning black eyes . . . there were other eyes like that once, but their owner was not interested in a liaison with a Shinzoku. They could not have been what he and his diamond could become, if only there was no one in the way. 

He hates the young Soukoku with a passion. How can his diamond lavish his affections on someone so shallow—a boy in a man's body? What is there behind those eyes that makes his diamond consider the youth worth even a moment of his time? It's disgusting. Vile. He wants to rend the young one apart . . . but he knows that if he does, his diamond will never look to him, not ever. 

What price, he muses, is he willing to pay to have such beauty, such _excellence_ , partnering him? Surely there must be something that the Soukoku wants and his young fool of a lover cannot give him. The little gifts have failed, but there are greater ones he could give. 

Would his diamond perhaps like a kingdom for his very own?


	47. Chapter 37

"I'm sorry, my lords, but I've never seen that much tanzanite in one place before. I certainly didn't make it." 

I exchanged glances with Geneus. He looked wrong to me with blonde hair and golden eyes, but we'd decided that, for this expedition, two minor Shinzoku lords were more likely to get answers than either a pair of Mazoku or a pair of mysteriously wealthy commoners. 

This was the eighth jeweler we'd tried. There were forty or so of them on the list that Beryes had, by mysterious means, obtained for us, but I was already tired . . . more due to the repeated disappointment than the physical effort of walking everywhere, though. I'd hardened up that much. 

"Do you have any idea who might have?" I asked, invoking our last, slim hope. 

"No, but . . ." 

I pounced. "But?" 

Several expressions crossed the jeweler's face. It was obvious that he was trying to make up his mind about something. I didn't try to push him. 

"My old master might be able to tell you," he said at last. "He's an expert appraiser—identifies styles of work better than anyone else I've ever met. But he's retired." 

"This is important," I said. "Where can we find him?" 

"At this time of day? Probably at the Winking Shark, on Steep Street." Which was about as much help to us, in terms of directions, as "ten feet to the left of a green curtain", but I didn't dare say so—admitting we didn't know our way around the city would be as good as saying we weren't who we appeared to be. "He spends most of his time there, betting on dice games. Ask for Master Felyus." 

"Thank you." I retrieved the necklace, wrapped it with the bit of battered sacking we'd acquired at the palace, and stuffed it inside my shirt before heading for the door. 

"I am beginning to think that the necklace may be quite old," Geneus said once we had climbed down the two stone steps outside the shop. "Or perhaps the maker is from another city." 

"Mmh?" I had to admit that I wasn't listening very hard—I was too busy trying to figure out how to find the Winking Shark on Steep Street without asking anyone for directions. 

"He—" My fiancé nodded toward the shop and its middle-aged owner. "—is clearly a master in his own right. The other master jewelers presently working in this city are therefore his rivals, and he would recognize their work. Thus, the necklace must be from further afield, in time or in space." 

I digested that. "So if we're lucky, it'll have come from out of town in the possession of someone whose movements we can trace back." And if we weren't lucky, it had been buried in someone's back garden for a couple of centuries and we'd never find out where it had come from. 

I looked up and down the street again, but no convenient "Winking Shark" sign jumped out at me. 

"That way, I think," Geneus said, nodding in a direction mostly to our left. 

I blinked. "How do you figure? I know you haven't been here before." 

"Our informant glanced in approximately that direction as he spoke, suggesting that it was somehow relevant . . . and if he has no sense of direction, then we will be no worse off than we would be if we struck out at random." 

I shook my head. "I don't know how you manage to keep track of all these little details, much less make sense of them." 

Geneus smiled. "In a century or so I suspect you will be equally able to sort the wheat from the chaff. You are observant enough—you only require experience." 

I felt myself flush slightly with something that was half embarrassment and half pride. "There are another couple of shops in that direction anyway, I think," I forced myself to say. "So it's as good a way to try as any." 

"Shall we, then?" Geneus made me a slight bow and gestured gracefully in the direction of the nearest cross-street. 

Steep Street, when we found it . . . was. Steep, I mean. The entire city did have a slope to it, with the harbour as the low point and the palace as the high one, but this section went from almost-flat to near-vertical to almost-flat again, and the street along the vertical part was divided in two, with the left side being a flight of stairs. The Winking Shark was about midway up. It had a classic dangling sign like the ones you see in movies about the Middle Ages in Europe, except that this one was covered with plaster relief work. And they'd painted over the top of that. 

"Do sharks really come in that colour here?" I asked, staring at the lipstick-pink fish that had half of its face twisted into an exaggerated wink as it chewed on a mouthful of lime-green seaweed. 

"I think the painter was colour-blind." Geneus' mouth curved into a half-smile as he spoke. I snorted. 

Inside, the building was another tea shop, like the one down by the harbour where we'd spoken to Saralegui . . . except that this one had more occupants than just the girl tending the counter. It wasn't quite crowded, but there were a lot of old guys clustered around the marble-topped tables, drinking tea and shooting the breeze while they diced or played zhiba. 

"Well, _hello_ there, sweet things . . . I mean, my lords," husked a waitress who had been hovering near the door as we stepped across the threshold. She was wearing rather more clothing than most people around here, a dress that covered her entire torso and reached almost to her knees despite the side slits . . . Then I noticed a patch of greenish stubble on the side of her jaw that she hadn't shaved away quite thoroughly enough, and blinked again. Yeah, that dress _would_ be enough to cover for the fact that that cleavage was stuffing, and hide the tell-tale crotch bulge. 

The other two . . . wait-people were similarly dressed, and one of them was no more convincing than Josak, despite elaborate makeup. And they were all flirting enthusiastically with the customers. Mentally, I shrugged. It was no business of mine if the Winking Shark was a transvestite theme cafe, really—I was just a little startled to find something like that outside Akihabara. 

"Can I help you?" the wait-person by the door finished. 

"We are looking for a Master Felyus," Geneus said. 

"The jeweler? Right this way, my lords!" 

We were led on a twisting path through the room, up a flight of stairs, and out onto a balcony on the harbour side of the building. There were three more tables here, under tiled gazebo-type roofs raised on pillars, and most of the seats were filled. The green-haired server considered the scene for a moment. "Please, my lords, wait here. I will be back with Master Felyus momentarily." 

Our guide threaded a path between an old man leaning back at a precarious angle and the rail of the balcony with a saucy hip-swish, and then addressed someone at the far table, and pointed. I could see one head of iron-grey hair turning to look at us before its owner got up off his stool and began threading his way back over toward us. 

Felyus was a smallish, stooped man whose hair must once have been dark brown, wealthy enough to have an open-fronted vest to go with the short, kiltlike garment he wore below. He planted himself opposite us with his back to the balcony railing. "What can I do for you, my lords?" 

"We are trying to identify a piece of jewelry," Geneus said. "One of your former apprentices said you were a skilled appraiser." 

A raised eyebrow. "Did he also tell you that I'm retired? My lord." 

"He did," I said. "But this is kind of important. The item in question was left as a courtship gift for my sister. Thing is, she's already engaged, and her fiancé swears up and down that he wasn't the one who'd left her the jewelry. He also isn't very pleased about it. I need to get this cleared up before it ruins her wedding day, but the necklace itself is the only clue we have to her would-be lover's identity . . ." I shrugged, trying to look helpless and hoping that I'd delivered the lie convincingly. 

"What my cousin has forgotten to mention is that we will, of course, compensate you for your time," Geneus said. 

Felyus snorted. "Oh, very well, show me the damned thing. Shouldn't take me more than a few minutes to tell you where it came from." 

I pulled the necklace out and placed it in his hands, still wrapped in sacking. He unfolded the cloth with brusque, impatient gestures . . . and then stopped. His eyes narrowed, and he disentangled the necklace with rather more care than I would have expected. 

"Where did you say you got this?" 

Geneus and I exchanged glances. "It was left as a courtship gift for someone who didn't want it," I said—a description that fit both the true circumstances and the lie we had given him. "I know the stones are unusual." 

Felyus' smile was more of a grimace. "Unusual . . . yes, that's one way of putting it. The mine that produced these tanzanites has been played out for nearly three thousand years. They could have been scavenged from an older piece and re-set, but I don't think that's the case here. No one works in this style anymore—or rather, those that do produce poor imitations of older works, which this is not. However, the center setting is not the original." His thumb rubbed over the surface of the black gem. "It was probably an opal. But even without it, this is an unusual and valuable piece. Either your sister's mystery suitor is wealthy and from an old family, or he had no idea what this is, my lord." Then his eyebrows . . . jumped, I suppose you could say. "I don't suppose . . . 'scuse me, boys," he said to the men at the table nearest us. "Can I have a little space? Thanks," he added as they moved their zhiba board. 

The jeweler laid the necklace on the table and detached a small tool from a ring at his belt, which he used to work the big stone in the pendant from its setting. Then he picked it up and squinted at the backing for several moments. "Cazarior," he said, and his tone was reverent. 

"Which means?" I asked. 

Felyus blinked. "Ah, your pardon, my lords. Cazarior was Royal Jeweler to the Founder himself. This must be an early piece of his—there's no master's chevron over the hallmark, much less the royal crown—but the historical value alone must be immense." 

When I heard the word _Founder_ , a lump of ice developed in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn't going to be going away any time soon. 

"Unusual to see him working in silver," the jeweler added as he re-set the loose stone. "I wonder who it was made for. You know, if I were your sister, I would break off her engagement and accept whoever left this for her—he's obviously got more money than brains. Um, sorry, my lord." Felyus gave me a nervous look, and I realized that I'd been grinding my teeth. 

"It's okay," I said. "How much do we owe you?" 

"The opportunity to handle such an unusual piece is enough, my lord." Felyus bowed as he offered me the necklace, spread over the palms of both his hands. 

I took the damned thing and folded it back into the sackcloth, then forced myself to stuff it back into the front of my shirt. I'd rather have thrown it in the harbour, especially now that I had an uncomfortable feeling that I knew who had left it. 

What I didn't get was why. _Yelshi-original_ courting Geneus? It should have been ridiculous, and I expended a lot of effort on trying to shake the idea out of my head as we threaded our way back through the building and out onto the street. 

"He must be hoping to drive a wedge between us," Geneus said softly as we turned to head back up the hill to the palace. 

"Or else he's crazy," I said . . . and then wished I hadn't, because my fiancé's expression turned grim. 

"I hope not. It is difficult to predict the actions of an insane person until one has some measure of the depth of his insanity." 

_What can we do?_ It was on the tip of my tongue, but I pushed the question back because I didn't think there was a useful answer. Our plan was already in motion. We just had to follow it . . . and hope that nothing went wrong. 

We had hours yet before the treaty was supposed to be announced, and so we were able to follow an irregular path back up the hill, peering into any shop that interested us. We both wanted— _needed_ —some kind of distraction. Unfortunately, the city wasn't very obliging. 

We canceled our illusion of being Shinzoku just before we reached the palace gate, and the guards let us through without blinking . . . well, except for one young fellow who must have been very new on the job, but his much older partner kept him from doing anything stupid. 

By mutual, unspoken consent, we went to our rooms, and used tiny water dragons drawn from the pitcher of water they'd left us for washing to sluice the dust off. At any other time, the delicate process of separating the water from contaminants to make it stretch farther would have been fascinating, but right now it was more of an irritant. I couldn't concentrate. 

Geneus knew, though. As he always did. The moment we were finished washing, he wrapped his arms firmly around me and kissed me, and, well, I couldn't _not_ return it. Especially when he pressed his lower body against mine, and I started to get hard almost despite myself. 

"We both need this," he murmured as we parted, and the only thing I could find to say in response was his name. 

We sat down together on the edge of the bed and slowly opened each individual hook and button on each other's clothes, taking it by turns to sample the flavour of exposed areas of skin. I sucked hard on the side of his neck, leaving a red mark to flower there. He retaliated with a chain of three along the line of my left collarbone. 

I used a slender water dragon to pull our boots off. Geneus seemed to find that amusing. 

"You are much stronger than you were a month ago, you know," he said as we lay down, facing each other. 

"Mostly because of you," I said huskily. I caressed his maryoku with mine and felt a shiver run through him. 

"I may have taught you, but it is your persistence and strength of mind that has made of you what you now are. You are well on your way already to becoming what I saw that night on the hill." 

" _Maoh,_ " I whispered, remembering the odd note in his voice as he'd spoken that word. 

"In the fullness of your power," Geneus agreed. "I have always had a bit of a weakness for powerful men." He was playing with my nipples now, teasing them between his fingers until they puckered up. I moaned appreciatively and slid my hand between his legs, finding him just as hard as I was. He thrust his hips forward, pushing against my palm, and I cupped my fingers around him. 

He kissed his way down my chest and stomach, and I tangled my fingers in his hair as he nipped lightly at the skin just above my navel. His mouth traced a hot, wet path down to the base of Little Shouri, and when he pushed gently at my hip, I let him roll me over onto my back. He knelt between my legs, cupped my ass in the palms of his hands, lifting me, and bent to suckle on me, while I found myself making soft sounds deep in my throat. 

"Love you," I said. "Love you so much . . ." He was spreading my ass now, stroking the crack while his mouth continued its busy work. Again, I used my maryoku to pleasure him in return, and his moan was music to my ears. Then he began to hum, and I gasped. "Be careful, I'm going to—" 

Which, of course, was the moment he released me from his mouth and gripped my cock firmly at the base. 

"Tease," I muttered . . . but seeing his smile, I couldn't be very resentful. 

"I would like to do this sitting up, if you would permit," he said. "I want to be able to hold you . . . to see your face . . ." 

I swallowed against the sudden lump in my throat. "Yeah." 

There was a little work to be done first, though, because I certainly wasn't loose enough to take him without some preparation, not when I had to be able to walk for the rest of the day. I drew my knees up to my chest and let him go to it. He didn't touch my prostate as he stretched and slicked me, but then he didn't need to—my body had figured out some time ago what these odd sensations meant, and my erection didn't deflate in the least. 

I knew when I was ready, and I caught his wrist and gently drew his hand away, my body aching for something more substantial than his fingers. He sat back on his heels, and I positioned myself over him, guiding the head of his cock into place. 

I lowered myself slowly, feeling myself stretched and filled while Little Shouri rubbed against the taut muscles of Geneus' stomach. When I was fully seated, I sought his mouth, hungry for the taste of him again, and he more than obliged. 

Even after we broke the kiss, our eyes remained locked on each other as I began to ride him. _Not the last time,_ I told myself as his arms slid around my body. _I won't let it be._ I angled my hips so that the next thrust hit my prostate full on instead of just lightly teasing it, and moaned as pleasure shot through me. _Don't think, Shouri. Feel._

Geneus was never more beautiful than like this, with his hair loose about his shoulders and his eyes afire with power and passion, and I drank in the sight as we moved together. His breath hitched as I stroked his face. I whispered his name, and he made a soft, wordless sound as we moved together in unison. And in a place that I couldn't see, our maryoku twined together in a binding caress. I wanted him to dissolve into me, to unite us permanently so that we would never again be anything other than together, and one . . . but I also knew that wasn't going to happen. In the end, we were both our own people—otherwise, our relationship would never have worked. 

He slid his hand between us and began to stroke my cock. I whimpered as his thumb made slow circles around the head. Always a tease, always giving me as much as I could take . . . My Geneus. 

"More," I moaned, and he obliged by squeezing Little Shouri and thrusting up hard, hitting my prostate squarely. Geneus' hand moved rhythmically over my erection, in time with his thrusts, and I trembled as I felt the molten pleasure gather in my balls. 

I howled so loudly as I came that they probably heard me in Shin Makoku—loudly enough that I found myself blushing as reality started to reestablish itself . . . just in time to feel Geneus come inside me with a soft groan. 

We sat there together for several moments, arms around each other, before I managed to find my voice. 

"If . . . if everything does go wrong, this time," I said slowly, "I want you to bind my memories to my soul." 

"Shouri . . ." 

"Don't you dare try to tell me again that it's a stupid thing to do," I said. "Or that I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I know all of that. But I refuse to be separated from you." 

"I already promised to teach you how, if you will recall," Geneus said. "This merely . . . moves matters ahead a bit more quickly. But I truly hope that it will not be necessary." 

"I know what you mean. If Yelshi-original turns out to be no worse than one of those light wolves . . . I'm going to feel silly, but also relieved." 

"Yes." My fiancé frowned, turning his head to glance at the door to the sitting room, where I had left my swords. "I would be happier if Vetruan were able to tell us something about our quarry, but I have the impression that they have not been in contact since Yelshi-original died—that his belief in his enemy's continued existence stems from absence, rather than presence." 

"I just had a terrible thought," I said. "What if he's wrong? What if what we're about to face isn't Yelshi-original, but . . . someone or something else?" 

"Does it truly matter? We know that there is something there to fight. We have an idea of its shape, its thinking and characteristics. Even if we have given it the wrong name, will that make a difference in how we fight?" 

"Probably not," I admitted. 

My fiancé shifted under me. "I fear that we need to clean ourselves and dress now, or Lieutenant Gurrier may unthinkingly open the door on us again." 

I snorted. "I can just hear him—'If you two are done playing hide-the-sausage, would you mind coming to the throne room for a bit?'" 

"He is not normally so sarcastic." 

"No, but his sense of humour sucks." Since Geneus couldn't move unless I got up first, I slid off the bed and began to wipe myself down, coldness gathering in the pit of my belly again. 

The next few hours were going to determine whether I lived or died.


	48. Chapter 38

" . . . open trade . . . five years . . ." 

I wasn't really listening to what Yelshi was saying. Instead, I was trying to keep an eye on every corner of the throne room at once, and failing dismally. Once again, there were more than two hundred people crammed inside, along with enough houseki to make my head ache. And nothing seemed to be happening. That was probably the worst part. A lot of muttering and irritated expressions, but no overt argument, much less Yelshi-original suddenly sweeping in to destroy his namesake. 

Yelshi fell silent, looking at everyone expectantly. The response . . . wasn't quite what any of us had expected, I think. 

"What about the sword?" 

I couldn't tell who, exactly, had spoken, but there were murmurs of agreement from all over the room. 

"What do you mean?" Yelshi asked crisply. 

The figure that pushed its way to the front was a familiar one. Kellellan still looked a bit battered around the edges, with a bruise discolouring his jaw. It vaguely disturbed me that the sight made me feel pleased and proud. Geneus had done a number on the young Shinzoku, that was for sure. 

"We mean, when are you going to _use_ it?" Kellellan snapped at the younger man. "It's been a couple of days now since you recovered it, and our soil is still dry and barren. People are _dying_ , or hadn't you noticed . . . your Majesty?" The title was an afterthought, and the rest of his little speech didn't exactly ring true either—since when had he cared about the ordinary citizens of Seisakoku? _He's just using them as an excuse._

"I am more than aware, Lord Kellellan. We had put off the ceremony in order to verify that the sword had not been tampered with during its absence from our shores, but we now believe it to be clean, and the ceremony may proceed immediately. Do you wish to witness it?" 

I stiffened—this hadn't been part of the plan. But after a moment, I saw the sense of it: Yelshi-original might be holding off until that one vital last piece that would allow Seisakoku to turn in on itself again was in place. So when the young king glanced at me, I gave him a slight nod. 

"Damned right I do," Kellellan snapped. 

"Very well," Yelshi said. "You may join Lord Calmeth in seeing that the people's will is carried out. I would also like to invite our honoured visitors from Shin Makoku and Small Cimaron to witness the proof of our power." 

Kellellan seemed to remember where he was just in time not to spit on the floor. 

In the end, there were sixteen people: Yuuri, Murata, Wolfram, Conrad, Geneus, and me for Shin Makoku; Saralegui and Beryes for Small Cimaron; and Yelshi, Alazon, Calmeth, Kellellan, plus four others (selected after a whispered conference between king, current regent, and ex-regent) for Seisakoku. A couple of guards fell in after us as we left the throne room, and I was unsurprised to see one of them wink a brilliant blue eye at me. 

I'm not sure what to call the room that they had set up for the sword. It was almost like a shrine, with its high ceiling and mosaic floor. The mosaic, I realized as I passed close to it, was at least partly constructed from pieces of houseki. 

We foreigners took up station on the left side of the room, standing well clear of the mosaic, and six of the Shinzoku positioned themselves opposite us. Yelshi and Alazon disposed themselves at the far end, where a narrow slot in the floor sat ready to receive the sword. 

The young king of Seisakoku glanced at Alazon, then Saralegui, then Murata, all in turn. Only after completing the round did he draw the sword that hung from his belt. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and golden fire shot along the blade. 

"I suppose there are those who would consider this a good time to make a speech," he said, "but in my opinion, it's four hundred years too late for that. Our people have suffered enough." 

He turned the sword over in his hands, and thrust it downward into the narrow socket that had been waiting to hold it again for the past four centuries. The fire that coated the blade paled slightly, flickering, and we all tensed. 

Then light shot along the mosaic. It ran along the room, through the open door, and out into the courtyard, and suddenly the air was thick with the smell of green and growing things, the way it had been when Saralegui had grabbed the sword from Alazon at Blood Pledge Castle . . . but not when I'd wielded it in the canyon outside the old White Crow stronghold. Proof that it worked better with houryoku than with maryoku, I guess. 

We all stood in silence as a vine crept along the edge of the doorway, bloomed, and then dropped the flowers and produced what looked very much like grapes. 

"We are saved," Calmeth said softly. 

Yelshi nodded. "We are—all thanks to the skill and generosity of our guests." 

A harsh and grating sound suddenly erupted in the room. 

Kellellan was laughing. 

Everyone turned to stare at him. 

Calmeth licked his lips. "Lord Kellellan, this is—" 

"'Most inappropriate'—is that what you are about to say?" The voice was not Kellellan's, although it was his mouth moving, his lips that curled upwards into a smile. Where had I heard that voice before? 

_About time that you showed yourself, Yelshi._ Conrad was the only person who didn't jump as Tessen vibrated against my shoulder. 

My mind was spinning as I hunched forward to make it easier to pull the maseki blade from its makeshift scabbard. _Kellellan? He's possessing_ Kellellan _? Not Terruzos? Wait a minute, he's been manipulating_ all three _factions? Trying to do what? Just get the sword back? Can't be. Just the idea is ridiculous. There's something more going on here._

Or . . . if Terruzos's departure was just a coincidence . . . maybe he'd been making sure that the current rulers didn't slip his leash? Alazon might have once respected Yelshi-original, but I somehow couldn't see her as slavishly obedient. 

Chances are that we would never find out what the hell he'd been trying to do. Only in movies, TV shows, and bad manga does the villain stop to explain anything to the heroes. 

I used Tessen's blade as a pointer. "Get out of him." 

Kellellan's body blinked. "Out? Oh, I see. You think I'm here against his will. Nothing could be further from the truth." His smile . . . had too many teeth. 

"Actually, I don't care whether you have his permission or not," I said. "But I'd prefer not to kill someone who isn't involved." Someone to my right—probably Yuuri—made a distressed sound when I said "kill", but I ignored that. Ensuring that we all survived was more important than worrying about what my brother would think of me afterwards. 

Yelshi-original laughed again. "My, you are a soft-hearted one, aren't you, Soukoku? Tell me," he added, turning his gaze on Geneus, "what _do_ you see in him? Why would a man of your experience be interested in this . . . child?" 

"Do not confuse youth with ignorance," my fiancé said. "I value Shouri's warmth, his intelligence, his strength . . . and his willingness to admit error." That made me blush, even though the last bit was a not-so-subtle dig at Yelshi-original (and possibly also at Shin'ou) more than a compliment. "He is a young man of considerable honour and courage, and I would not trade him for anyone else I have ever met." 

"He is unworthy of you." 

"That is not for you to judge. I have chosen him, not you." 

_This Geneus has better sense than to mingle his blood with that of a monster like you, Yelshi._ The tone in Vetruan's non-voice was colder than an Antarctic glacier at midwinter. _No more games, murderer. No more lies. The world will be better off without you._

Tessen vibrated against my palms, and miasma billowed out into the room, chokingly thick. I threw the not-sword on the floor as several houjutsu shields snapped into existence in various parts of the room. The moment my hands were empty, Geneus grabbed my arm and formed a wind-wall from our mingled power. Peering through the gloom, I saw Yuuri behind a shield that seemed to have been invoked by Beryes. He was leaning against Conrad, and the older man's left arm was around his shoulders, suggesting that the bodyguard had yanked his charge in close. Murata stood between Yuuri and Saralegui. Beryes was behind them, with his arms raised and golden light flowing from his palms. And Wolfram . . . should have been beside Conrad and Yuuri, but— 

A slender figure carrying a drawn sword shot across the room straight at Kellellan, screaming something in a language that I didn't recognize, but that made Geneus start violently. There was a metallic clashing noise as the half-seen figure of Yelshi-Kellellan blocked the downswing of the blade with an upraised arm banded with a thick golden bracelet—of course, if it was real gold, the sword-steel would have sheared right through it, so it was probably a coating over— _why am I thinking about this now?_ The important thing was Wolfram, whose possession by the corrupted Shin'ou had apparently left him vulnerable to other nasty influences. 

"Wolf!" Yuuri screamed his fiancé's nickname and tried to lunge out of the shield Beryes was casting. Fortunately, Conrad was good at predicting his charge, and yanked him back before he could take half a step. He murmured something in my brother's ear, and Yuuri . . . well, he didn't exactly _relax_ , but he stopped fighting his bodyguard. 

"What in hell do you think you're doing, Vetruan?" I snapped. "I didn't track him down for you so that you could do this!" 

There was no response, but I hadn't been expecting one. 

Yelshi-younger's use of the holy sword had made the air in the room much moister, and I grimly began to draw the moisture from it for my own use—wind might be more readily available, but at my skill level, a water dragon was more versatile, and I managed to create a couple of nice thigh-thick ones. 

I sent them toward Kellellan and Wolfram. I don't know what I intended to do beyond grabbing them—bang their heads together until their unwanted tenants left, maybe. Regardless, I never had a chance to try. Yelshi-original waved one hand and splattered the dragon I sent after him, and the sudden loss of power would have sent me to my knees if Geneus hadn't steadied me. Vetruan was more subtle: he stole the second dragon, invading it with miasma that turned it purply-black. The sensation of corruption made me gag. 

"Shouri! Damn it, Conrad, let me _go_!" Yuuri was struggling to get loose from his bodyguard again. I forced myself to straighten up and raise my head and generally look calm and in control. 

"Stay where you are!" I told my brother, adding, "If you don't, I'm going to tell Mom what you just said." 

Yuuri went white. Apparently I wasn't the only one who remembered that incident with the bar of soap when he was seven. Invoking it was playing dirty, but I didn't care: if that was what it took to keep him safe, I would do it, and take the blame on myself. 

A quick glance around the room showed Calmeth shooing several other Shinzoku out a side entrance. I'd give the ex-regent this: I might not like him, but overall, he was a practical and decisive man. Alazon and Yelshi-younger were still at the front, hovering near the holy sword where it was embedded in the floor. Between us and them, Yelshi-Kellellan had pulled a sword as well, and he and Vetruan-Wolfram were battling each other back and forth across the glowing houseki mosaic. 

Then the mosaic began to ripple and lift, stopping the fighters dead in their tracks. Up at the front, Yelshi-younger had gripped the hilt of the holy sword with both hands, and I think he was leaning on it for balance, but his face was set and angry as vines drove up through the floor to envelop the combatants. They were more durable than water dragons, or maybe less vulnerable to counter-magic, because they succeeded in snaking around the fighters and pulling them apart. 

Yelshi-Kellellan yelled in outrage, cursing everyone present with an assortment of unpleasant skin conditions that fortunately failed to materialize. Vetruan-Wolfram just glared at the young king of Seisakoku, and then lashed out at him with his stolen water dragon. It splattered on Alazon's shield, but Yelshi-younger dropped to one knee. I wasn't sure, but it looked like he was panting. 

Houjutsu and miasma lashed simultaneously against Alazon's shield, and it began to buckle. But the massive amount of force involved couldn't be contained in such a small space. Some of it splashed against the ceiling, and I heard a disturbing cracking sound. 

Conrad clearly heard it too, because he glanced upward, developed an expression that suggested he was probably thinking something improper about one or more of Shin'ou's body parts, and tackled both Yuuri and Murata out of the way just as a chunk of ceiling came down. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong direction to tackle them in, and the trio ended up pinned between vines, fallen stone, and Vetruan, with another loosened chunk of ceiling teetering precariously overhead. 

There was no time for planning. Yuuri was babbling confusedly at Conrad as the soldier tried to press him to the ground and cover him with his body. Murata wore an odd, wry, skewed grin, as though he couldn't believe that his life was going to end _here_ , pinned under a half-ton block of rock. And I . . . reached down into the bottom of my mind and tore open a familiar trap-door. 

Power flooded through me, and I used it to utterly destroy both the ceiling and the room above us. The chunks of stone still rained down, but they landed a good distance away, instead of on people's heads. The moment that was done, I dropped to my knees, gagging, because it felt like the damned houseki pavement was under my skin. Geneus laid his hand on the nape of my neck, and healing flooded through me . . . but underneath it, I could feel that he was nauseous too, just from the way his maryoku pulsed against mine. 

We had to finish this quickly, if we could. 

Unfortunately, Yelshi-original still had a lot of power left. I could feel it, like a thousand mosquito bites against my skin. I could see it, too, gnawing away at the vines, which were being protected by a paler, greener light than the immortal's brilliant gold. And Vetruan, rather than attacking the vines with his power, was struggling against them physically. He'd already rubbed Wolfram's wrists raw: I could see the blood staining the cuffs of the blonde Mazoku's fine white shirt. I had to get Vetruan out of there, but there was only one method that occurred to me that didn't risk doing much worse damage to Wolfram than just a little worn-through skin, and it put me at risk of something . . . even worse. 

On the other hand, it might be able to _end_ this. I told myself that over and over again as I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, approaching the vines one step at a time. 

" _Vetruan,_ " I said, and the resonance in my voice seemed almost familiar. " _Come here._ " 

"You are offering me your body?" the ancient spirit said through Wolfram's lips, twisting the young Mazoku's face into a formidable frown. "Are you mad?" 

" _I don't think so,_ " I said. " _Better me than the one whose body you have already stolen. At least I'm a volunteer._ " 

"Your lover doesn't approve." 

"I do not," Geneus admitted. "But I understand Shouri's reasoning, and I trust him." 

" _In the worst case, my brother will be able to get you out,_ " I added, meeting Vetruan's eyes. " _He's done it once already._ " 

"You assume that my deciding that your body . . . suits . . . me truly is the worst possible case." Vetruan smirked. 

" _Quit trying to screw with my head and get the hell out of Wolfram._ " The resonance turned the words into a near-growl. 

"As you wish. He isn't strong enough to channel all of my power anyway, or I wouldn't still be in this . . . ridiculous situation. Perhaps you will do better." 

Wolfram's body jerked and then went limp as the miasma began to fountain up out of it. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to keep my defenses down as the darkness approached me. I clenched both hands around my belt as it slithered over my skin, and nearly snapped it as the shadow began to sink inside me. Like swimming in sewage . . . like _drinking_ sewage . . . and my poor abused stomach didn't like it one bit . . . I planted my feet more firmly even as I gagged. 

Once he was all the way in, I discovered that Vetruan and I mixed about as well as water and oil. I had a hard time not fighting him for control of my body. We nearly fell over as he turned our head to look at Yelshi-original, who was grinning at us from where he hung among the vines. 

"Interesting," he said. "Do you think you're going to do better that way? Well, feel free to try." 

With a smirk and an immense surge of power, he broke free of the vines. From somewhere hidden among the greenery, I heard a thud and a gasp. 

"Yelshi!" Saralegui's panicked shout told me who had collapsed, anyway, although I hadn't known that he cared so much about his brother. Regardless, I couldn't turn to check on either of them, because Vetruan kept me squarely facing Yelshi-original. 

" _Die,_ " the ancient king said dramatically, and raised our arm to point at his foe. What felt like an immense amount of dirty water ran through me, and miasma smote viciously at Kellellan. I could feel the Shinzoku faltering, his power crumpling under the onslaught of tainted majutsu . . . and then he vanished as though he had never been. Or seemed to, because when I lowered my hand, he was leaning against the base of a vine some ten feet away, still smirking. 

He shook his head sadly at us. "It doesn't matter how much power you have if you can't hit what you're aiming at, you know." 

Vetruan roared with rage, and my grasp on reality slithered, slipped and faded. 

Which was probably what Yelshi-original had wanted in the first place, damn him.


	49. Chapter 39

The inside of your own head is dark and empty, and you feel like you're falling forever. You don't have arms, or legs, or eyes, or ears. Just . . . nothing. Total sensory deprivation. 

I refused to let it drive me crazy. 

There had to be something I could hold onto, something that wasn't exactly the same. Somewhere. 

There was . . . a current. Nudging against my maryoku senses, which I suddenly realized were still active. I groped toward it with my mind—now that I had something to focus on that wasn't exactly the same as everything else, I had a sense of distance and direction. It flowed . . . from side to side . . . No, from _down_ to _up_ , from the deepest parts of myself to the outside. A current of little motes of brightness, of elemental spirits . . . I'd been in Maoh Mode when I'd gone under. Perhaps somewhere on the outside, I still was. 

I steeled myself and moved into the current, letting it buoy me up. Still, it was difficult to release what little control I had and let it carry me. Difficult and frightening, but I was determined to do it anyway. 

The alternative was letting Yelshi-original win, and I was damned if I was going to do that. 

There was a shock like bursting through the surface of ice water, and the world flooded back into my senses. Hot air, light, the scent of green and growing things, the sound of panting, the sensation of my chest heaving as I fought to catch my breath. And Geneus, spine rigid, staring at me. After a moment, his posture relaxed, just a hair, and he mouthed my name. 

_Shouri?_

I tried to nod, but the muscles just wouldn't work. Or at least, they wouldn't work _for me_. When Vetruan yanked my head around to face in a different direction, everything functioned perfectly. For him. 

The most I could do was mouth Geneus' name back at him, the true name that he had given only to me. Vetruan didn't seem to care about my mouth, although I couldn't actually speak, because my vocal cords wouldn't vibrate. Still, it was enough to make my fiancé smile with relief. 

I wanted to wrestle control of my body back—wanted it so badly I could taste it—but my _purpose_ here was to get rid of Yelshi-original. I had to get that done before I could worry about my body. And Vetruan didn't seem to be doing very well at it without my help. He hated Yelshi-original so much that he was having a hard time controlling himself. He didn't just want the ancient Shinzoku destroyed—he wanted him to suffer the way he and his family had suffered, and he didn't care that torturing Yelshi to death was more risky and time-consuming than a clean kill. And I knew I wasn't going to be able to argue him out of it, either. I'm not Yuuri. I was going to have to trick or push or force Vetruan into helping me make a clean kill, and then apologize afterwards for making his revenge unsatisfactory. 

First, I had to get some idea of what he was doing, and what was going on around us . . . and how long I'd been in cold storage, for that matter. I didn't think it could have been more than a couple of minutes, but it was hard to take in details with someone else controlling the direction I looked in and even what my eyes were focused on. I managed to pick out Conrad, with his arms wrapped around a squirming, arguing Yuuri, looking frustrated as he glanced around the room searching for an exit that wasn't clogged with vines. Beryes was at the front of the room, crouched over a prone form that was probably Yelshi-younger, while Saralegui stood beside him with one hand resting on the crosspiece of the holy sword. 

Vetruan was flailing around with tendrils of black miasma which seemed to miss their target as often as they hit. Yelshi-Kellellan dodged them all without missing a beat, smirking. It was clear that the long-dead Soukoku king's strategy, if you could call it that, wasn't having much effect on his opponent. We needed something better. 

_We need to pin him down._ Easier said than done, when everyone's best efforts in that direction had failed. 

There was one option that occurred to me, though. One stomach-churning, wrenching, _vicious_ option that made me want to throw up. Still, I didn't see what choice we had. 

And so, the next time Yelshi-Kellellan gathered himself for an acrobatic leap out of the way of the miasma tendrils, I gathered wind and aimed low. 

I didn't actually succeed in hamstringing him, or at least not on the first shot, but the wind-blade cut into his calf and made him stumble as he came down. That gave me time for the second shot, which put him down on one knee, no longer able to stand, glaring at me. 

And yet, Yelshi-original still wouldn't leave Kellellan's body. Why not? What could possibly be keeping him inside that damaged shell? 

Vetruan's next barrage of miasma crackled against a golden shield-dome as Yelshi-Kellellan shifted around, pulling himself up onto a chunk of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling. He cupped his hands over his crippled leg, and the light of houjutsu healing flowered between his fingers. 

Vetruan paused and took a deep breath. I could feel the miasma shifting, condensing, narrowing down to a needle-sharp point. I gritted my teeth—or tried to—and fed him power. 

The results were . . . shocking. To everyone. Yelshi-original's shield shattered with a glassy sound and an explosion of power that flung Kellellan's body in one direction and mine in the opposite one. I was lucky, really: I got thrown clear of the base of the wall, but not so far that I landed in the rubble that I'd turned the rest of that wall into. I hit the ground with bruising impact, but even with me not in charge, my body remembered what Bob had taught me about falling, and I didn't break anything. 

"You," Vetruan muttered as we lurched back to our feet. "Such power . . . What _are_ you?" 

_What do you mean? I'm Mazoku, just like you are. Half-trained at best, as you pointed out around the time we first met._ I formed the words as clearly as I could inside my head, even though I doubted he would hear me. 

I felt him shake our head. "No, you are more than that. The spirits . . . flow through you. I have never sensed anything of the sort before." 

I blinked—apparently, he didn't care if I ran our eyelids—and tried to make sense out of that as we scrambled back over the knee-high remains of the broken wall, wincing at our bruises. _Spirits flow through you._ Maoh Mode? I could accept that Vetruan wasn't what Geneus had called a True Maoh, but I was a little surprised that he'd never even heard of such a being. Did that mean . . . that Yuuri and I and Shin'ou were the only ones who had ever existed? Maybe even that Shin'ou had intentionally created more beings who shared what had originally been a trait unique to him? 

_This isn't the time,_ I told myself. I didn't get why Yuuri hadn't gone into Maoh Mode yet too, though. The quick glimpse I caught of him talking to Murata as Vetruan skimmed the area with a glance didn't help me much. Did he even understand what was going on? 

The wall on the other side of the room was still thigh-high, and left a gaping opening deeper into the palace. Vetruan muttered a curse as we clambered over it—I guess he wasn't used to things like bruises anymore, and from the feel of it, I was going to have a dandy one on my left thigh and hip when this was over. 

Kellellan, when we found him, looked . . . bad. He'd smashed down on some of the rubble, and some bones were clearly broken. Some of them were sticking up through his skin. His eyes were quite lucid despite the damage, but somehow I doubted it was Kellellan himself behind them. They were too calm, too calculating . . . and the aura of gold light was still gathered around him. It extended defensive tendrils as we approached. 

"Why won't you just give up and _die_?" Vetruan ground out. 

Yelshi-Kellellan laughed. "Surrender? To _you_? The Black Butcher? The man whose laws had humans executed for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving children, while Mazoku could torture and murder and suffer no more than a fine at the very most? Did you tell your little friend about _that_ part? I have to protect my people, from you and those like you." 

Vetruan recoiled inwardly, and I seized the opportunity to get back in control of my own mouth. 

" _He didn't tell me, but it doesn't matter anyway,_ " I said mildly . . . although the weird resonant quality in my voice kept that from working as well as I might have liked. " _What he may have done doesn't justify what_ you _did. Did descending to his level—torturing and murdering babies, who can't possibly have done you any harm—make you feel_ good _about yourself? Did turning his people into monstrous weapons improve_ your _people's position in any way? Even if he was a monster, that doesn't magically make you a saint . . . and you're more dangerous than he is. For the sake of this world's future, you have to go._ " 

Yelshi-Kellellan stared at me with a look that . . . well. I don't think I'd ever been hated before. Not personally. Not like that. 

" _For now, I want you out of that body,_ " I continued relentlessly. " _Or I'll force you out._ " 

The bastard gave me a smile—there was blood on his teeth, so I guess he must have had a cut inside his mouth—and began to stagger to his feet. I couldn't do anything but stare. Shoulder smashed, collarbone snapped, one arm dangling useless, hamstrings barely hanging together, and he still wasn't getting out. I couldn't understand it. Even if he was letting poor Kellellan take all the pain, the diminished capacity of that body had to be a nuisance. 

"Shouri!" I hadn't seen Geneus cross the rubble that was all that was left of the ritual room—he was just there, beside me, as though that was where he always had been . . . and always would be. "He is clinging to that body because—" 

"Please, my diamond, do not give him any more opportunity to come between us." Yelshi-Kellellan's smile was downright obscene. "I have left you in that flesh for too long, I suppose. Once you are free of it—free to move yourself to any body you choose—" 

"Free to live as a parasite, who, having no flesh of his own, must steal that of others to prevent himself from going mad? I cannot think of any circumstance under which I would accept that offer." Geneus' tone was cutting and cold . . . and I understood, now, what he had been trying to tell me. 

Shin'ou had an entire temple to anchor his mind and spirit, and Vetruan had Tessen, but Yelshi-original had nothing except the brains that he stole, since his own flesh must long since have gone to dust, and no monument had ever been built to him. He clung to Kellellan's body because if he didn't, he'd start to fall apart, to lose his mind and everything that made him Yelshi, instead of just some random soul. If the process went on long enough, he might even end up like the original Originator, the nameless one that had attacked Shin Makoku four thousand years ago, which had nothing left of its humanity except for animal cunning. 

Destroy his body and he would just go looking for another, unless . . . I swallowed. _Shit, I must be out of my mind to even be considering this._

I licked my lips and said, very softly, trying unsuccessfully to damp the resonance, " _Vetruan, if he were inside me with you, could we defeat him? Together?_ " 

Geneus made an inarticulate sound of protest, then visibly clamped down on himself, mouth thinning. I took his hand in both of mine. I couldn't really offer reassurance, but even a little comfort might help. 

_I'm sorry. I know what I'm risking: not just my life, but my soul and all its future lives with you. But I can't back down now. If I do, not only will I have broken my promise to see this put right, but I would bet that Yelshi-original would force Seisakoku to move against Shin Makoku. I'm not sure I could live with that on my conscience, with having forced Yuuri into a war. Please understand, my love. The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you._

Really, I didn't doubt that he did understand. Geneus knew all about duty and honour and lesser evils. It was just that knowing couldn't make it hurt any less. 

Vetruan's soundless voice intruded on my thoughts. _With what you have and what I have . . . yes, I think so._

I leaned in and gave Geneus a kiss. He raised his free hand, the one I wasn't holding, to caress the side of my face and give my earring a light tug. Again, the message didn't need words: I'd made promises to him too, and I had better do my damndest to deliver, or he was going to use my soul, in whatever shape it ended up, as a football. 

"Saying good-bye?" Yelshi-Kellellan asked with a smirk. "So touching." 

" _You wouldn't recognize 'touching' if it hit you over the head,_ " I said. " _And that wasn't 'good-bye'—it was 'sorry', and 'wait for me'. And I don't intend to keep him waiting long._ " 

The spirits whispered to my subconscious, and I was able to will a wind-wall into place without much difficulty despite Yelshi-Kellellan's thrashing against it. Now came the tough part: I had to kill Kellellan. In front of Yuuri. My guts were roiling at the thought, but I didn't see any way around it. 

Wind would be my instrument here too, I decided. I didn't want to . . . taint . . . water, which was my brother's natural element as well as my own, with this. 

Deep breaths. Gather the air, form it into blades, and— 

"Shouri!" 

_Yuuri . . ._ I bit his name back from the tip of my tongue. Pretended he hadn't said anything at all. 

"Shouri, stop this!" 

I flinched, and the blade of wind hit Kellellan's upper arm with a meaty _thunk_ , rather than smashing into his chest at I'd intended. 

"Don't kill him! Shou _ri!_ " Yuuri's voice mutated weirdly on the last syllable of my name, deepening, and I felt a massive upwelling of power behind me. 

The Maoh of Shin Makoku had finally shown himself, and he erected a wall of water between me and Yelshi-Kellellan. I tried to reach through it—there was no reason my attacks _had_ to move outward from my own body—but it was as effective as any wind-wall at keeping other powers out. 

" _I will not have you mete out death for my sake,_ " he said, and my precarious hold on my temper snapped as I spun to face him. 

" _Then what in hell do you expect me to do,_ Yuu-chan _? I don't see any way out of this without_ someone _dying, and if it isn't him, it's going to be_ us _. Yelshi-original isn't going to let go of that body unless it's to invade someone else._ " 

" _Then remove him._ " 

" ** _How?_** " I almost howled the word. 

" _Can you truly not see? Perhaps you rely too much on your mind, and too little on your instincts._ " 

" _Relying on your instincts was what destroyed Big Cimaron's navy, remember?_ " It wasn't fair—I _knew_ it wasn't fair even as I flung the accusation—but I was so full of anger that I had to let something out, or I was going to explode. 

Normally, Yuuri would have exploded right back, but either his Maoh-Mode personality shifts were more than just some kind of weird mental compartmentalization, or something in him realized that there was more going on there than appeared on the surface. Instead of yelling at me, he turned his attention to Geneus. " _Kinsman, please tend to my brother._ " 

Geneus glanced at him, then looked at me. His eyes widened slightly, and I saw the corners of his mouth tug downward. "As you will, My Lord Maoh. Shouri—" 

Bitter bile rose up my throat. " _Are you . . . betraying me? You dare?!_ " 

"I do not. I would not. But Shouri . . . remember what it is you have taken into yourself." He raised his chin, took my hand, and, very deliberately, placed it on his throat, then lowered both arms to his sides. He didn't need words to make me understand the offer: if I didn't trust him, all I had to do was squeeze, and he wouldn't resist. 

What had I taken into myself? The spirits . . . and . . . I lowered my hand from Geneus' throat and glanced to my right, where Tessen's dark blade still glittered starkly against an exposed portion of glowing mosaic. _Vetruan._ Was this even _my_ anger? Although the need for me to second-guess myself made me . . . even angrier, I could also see the necessity. Even if part of the rage was mine, I didn't dare _act_ from it. 

I took a deep breath. Looked at Yuuri again. " _If you can pluck that soul loose from that body, then show me, because I can't figure it out._ " 

The Maoh's smile wasn't at all like my brother's. There were shadows in it. Secrets. It impressed on me once again that Yuuri's Maoh Mode wasn't really the same as mine. In me, it raised my power level and offered me the spirits' knowledge of what I could do with my maryoku, but it didn't cause outright personality changes. 

My little brother was . . . singular. Created for his role by Shin'ou—a role no one else could have filled. Not even me, and I firmly quashed the resentment I felt at that thought. While Vetruan remained inside my body, my emotions weren't trustworthy. 

Yuuri strode forward without hesitation. My hands clenched into fists as he passed me, but I refused to let myself reach out and stop him. I had _asked_ him to do this. 

Kellellan kicked off from the ground as Yuuri approached and floated up into the air, smirking, but my brother just followed him. There was a flash of light as Yelshi-original tried to repel him, creating an undirected shockwave that forced me to turn away and raise an arm to protect my face from the sudden cutting wind. When I could look again, Yuuri had his right hand embedded in the Shinzoku's chest halfway to the elbow, and Yelshi-Kellellan was wearing an expression that seemed to be part anger and part . . . gratitude? The anger faded as my brother began to pull his arm out, and the Shinzoku's body slumped forward against the Maoh's shoulder. Yuuri ended up with his left arm around an unconscious Kellellan, and a soul clutched in his right hand. 

" _Shouri!_ " 

He _threw_ the soul at me, and I was so startled I almost failed to catch it, but my reflexes saved the day. The damned thing was even almost exactly the size of one of the baseballs I'd spent hours throwing back and forth with Yuuri just in order to be near him. 

" _I leave the rest . . . to you._ " And my brother slumped, falling from the sky. Conrad leaped forward to catch him—judging from the expression on his face, this wasn't an unusual conclusion to one of my brother's . . . episodes, although I hadn't seen enough of them to do a decent statistical study. I thought for a moment that they were both going to get squished by the equally unconscious Kellellan, but a battered Beryes lunged forward to save the day and shoulder the extra limp body. 

I looked down at the soul in my hand. Perfectly round, but not white. The surface rippled with all the colours I could name, and a few more I wasn't entirely sure of. It had to have taken a hellish amount of power to pull it out of Kellellan's body, or Yuuri wouldn't have fainted like that. 

It was going to take a hellish amount of power for me to destroy it, but at least Yuuri wasn't going to have to watch. 

" _Ready?_ " I muttered, but it didn't really matter whether the Originator I'd absorbed was on his toes or not. Yelshi's soul was jerking at my hand, trying to get away. We had to finish this before it did. 

The spirits whispered to me, and I cupped the soul against my chest, pushing it inside. 

There was a moment of absolute stillness, during which I met Geneus' eyes and gave him a tentative smile . . . and then all hell broke loose inside me. 

It started with me feeling like I'd dropped into a real-life remake of the movie _Alien_ —not that anything actually burst out of my chest, but I could feel shockwaves slamming me from the inside, and Shin'ou's left nut, it _hurt_. I'm pretty sure it crossed my mind, as I slowly sank to my knees, arms and torso curling around the agony, that I would have _preferred_ to have my body burst open, because at least then the pain would be _over_. 

" _You're not going anywhere,_ " I growled through clenched teeth, weaving a wind-wall through my skin. If Yelshi-original escaped, we would have all of this to do over again, and I doubted I would be able to bear it. 

The next pulse that slammed into me almost toppled me onto my nose, and I put everything I had into reinforcing the wind-wall. I was barely aware of the field of rubble around me—all my attention was, _had_ to be, directed inward. Until I felt something warm against the back of my hand. 

My head jerked up, and I found Geneus beside me, holding Tessen. When I opened my hand he pressed its hilt into my palm and curled my fingers around it, holding it there until I found enough strength to grip. 

"It is an amplifier, Shouri. Use it." As he already was—I could feel his power flowing through the weapon in a steady circuit, returning to him strengthened but tainted with Vetruan's miasma, which he swallowed without complaint. 

My fiancé insinuated himself into the wind-wall, gently taking control of it for himself, leaving me free to do . . . something. If I could figure out what I needed to do. I didn't really know the first damned thing about handling souls—I didn't have that "abstract theoretical knowledge" that Geneus had once told me that I needed. 

_I_ didn't, but the spirits that were still flowing through me did. I was going to have to let them guide me again. 

_Down,_ they told me. And _in_. And I followed them into a place that never was, and, I hoped, never would be. 

It was a vast wasteland of sand and tumbled stone, lit with dim purplish light that filtered through louring clouds . . . or at least, that's how I saw it, but I think a lot of it was illusion thrown together by my subconscious to give my primary senses something to work with. 

They stood atop mounds of what looked like it might once have been building stone, neat blocks now tumbled into random heaps, and a constant storm of multicoloured lightning raged back and forth between them. At first, I couldn't tell which of the vaguely humanoid figures was which, but as I concentrated, they took on detail and substance: Yelshi-original, dressed in knee-length grey trousers and a pair of sandals that wouldn't have looked out of place on an Earth beach, upper arms banded with heavy gold, his pale hair whipping in a sourceless wind; and Vetruan, wearing a long, open-fronted tunic of fine blue fabric that billowed behind him like wings. Underneath it, he wore dark trousers and high boots, and his hair was done up in an intricate braid that consisted of many smaller braids all drawn together. And he had Geneus' striking colouring, with pale, creamy skin that contrasted sharply against the jet black of his hair. There was a dark band of what might have been stone or glass around his left wrist. 

Neither of them was paying any attention to me, and really, why would they have been? Each of them had his worst enemy in front of him, and the freedom to strike at him with whatever power he could muster. Anything else . . . wasn't likely to be all that important to them just now. And they kept on ignoring me while I scrambled up Vetruan's rubble-mound, even though my entire body seemed to be glowing with a faint blue-white radiance. 

I staggered to the top of the uneven pile and immediately got a faceful of billowing blue silk. I muttered a curse and batted it away from my face, and Vetruan glanced over his shoulder and blinked in surprise. "You." 

"Of course, me," I snapped. "It's my damned body you're coming close to gutting here, remember? Let's finish this." 

The ancient Soukoku king shook his head, and smiled at me, just a little. "I keep underestimating you," he murmured. "Yes, by all means, let us finish this." 

He offered me his hand. I raised an eyebrow, looked at him, and took it. 

The instant power drain sent me to my knees, gasping, but the lightning flushed deep purple and there was a _boom_ from the other rubble-pile that made me think for a moment that my head had exploded. Instead, it was the sound of a whole bunch of rocks and one Shinzoku being thrown into the air. 

Yelshi seemed to be fighting madly to hold his body together, but Vetruan mustered one last bolt of power before collapsing beside me. It hit the ancient Soukoku dead-center, and he sort of . . . unravelled, falling apart into dust, glaring at us the whole while. 

I shook my head, realizing that I'd been staring for a couple of minutes now at the space the blonde man had been occupying. "That's it?" 

Vetruan gave me a crooked smile. "Were you expecting a fanfare? Although I suppose it does feel a bit anticlimactic. Five thousand years of hatred, eradicated in less than two weeks . . . I have to say that I am impressed. You are a great deal more than I expected you would be when you and your fiancé came stumbling into my prison." 

"I just did what had to be done—what someone _should_ have done a long time ago," I said. "That's all. I don't even know if it was really the right thing to do." 

"Whether I will leave of my own accord, you mean. Well. I think I owe you that much, at least, and truth be told, I don't know what I would do with your body, if I kept it. I've had my revenge, such as it was, and everyone I loved is long gone. Promise me one thing, though." 

"What?" 

"The others. Please try to find some way to cleanse their souls and send them on. They didn't choose to be what they became, and one of them . . . she was only eight years old." 

I swallowed, remembering a pathetic row of jars with crumbling seals, sitting on a stone shelf in a cave. "I understand. We'll do what we can." We couldn't have left the imprisoned Originators in Seisakoku in any case—the Shinzoku didn't have a long enough collective memory to be trusted with them. 

"Thank you. That is all I ask." Vetruan rose to his feet, dusting off his long silken tunic. "Farewell, Shouri Shibuya. The only useful gift I can offer you in return for everything you've done is Tessen—it will be a faithful servant to you without my mind cluttering it up. Everything else, I intend to take with me." Another crooked smile. He closed his eyes, folded his arms crossways over his chest like a Pharaoh's mummy, and dissipated into miasma, which shot up into the sky. 

I crouched awkwardly on the rubble for a few seconds more, watching the clouds clear overhead. I felt empty but clean, as though an arctic wind had swept through my soul and scoured away all the gunk I'd absorbed. 

I called on the spirits one last time and let the inner world fade. For a blurry second or two, I was aware of the real world, of a rubble-strewn, nerve-prickling houseki mosaic, torn vines, Tessen's hilt in my hand, and voices calling my name—one voice in particular. 

"Shouri? Beloved?" 

" _'M fine,_ " I said. " _Jus' tired._ " 

I let myself pitch forward into Geneus' arms, and the world slid away.


	50. Chapter 40

Bright sunlight, a bird chirping practically in my ear . . . I brought one arm up to shade my eyes as I opened them to find myself lying in the bed in our suite in the royal palace of Seisakoku . . . although it hadn't had vines growing around the edges of the window the last time I had been here. 

I was alone, but I didn't think I'd been that way for long—I could see the impression of Geneus' body marking the mattress on the other side of the bed, and the thin pillow carried his scent when I buried my face in it. Also, I could hear soft sounds coming from the outer room: the scratch of a pen, pages being turned, and now and again, a muttered word in a foreign language. 

It wasn't until I flung off the thin blanket that I realized I was naked. I just hoped my future husband had been the one to undress me, because I had this mental image of Murata scoping out my naked body and then making snarky remarks about the size of my— Anyway, someone had laid out my trousers and a clean shirt, and I pulled them on as quickly as I could, for the sake of my peace of mind. Then I padded over to the doorway leading to the outer room. 

Geneus had one of the crumbling books that Murata had found with the holy sword open on a low table in front of him, and was copying the text onto fresh paper. He seemed to be utterly absorbed in his work, not even looking up when I cleared my throat. 

" _Good morning,_ " I said, then froze, feeling the smile slide from my face. 

Somehow, I was still in Maoh Mode. I hadn't even realized it until I'd heard the resonance in my voice, but now that I knew, I could feel the spirits flowing through me, although I deliberately turned my mind away from them. I didn't want to hear what they might be whispering. 

Geneus looked up from the book and smiled warmly at me, setting his pen aside and rising to his feet. "Welcome back, Shouri—although we are some hours into the afternoon. It has been two days since you lost consciousness." 

I looked down. " _Geneus, I'm still—_ " 

"I am aware." His arms closed around me, and I tried to concentrate on his embrace, the feel of his body against mine, the scent of him, but the hole in the bottom of my mind refused to shut itself. "At first I feared for you, but it does not seem to be depleting your maryoku or doing you any other harm I can quantify." 

" _Am I going to be stuck like this forever? Permanent Maoh Mode?_ " 

"I truly do not know . . . but I fear that some of what you were subjected to in the battle against Yelshi-original may have damaged a mechanism inside you that already was not functioning properly, especially since you did not return to normal after losing consciousness." 

Which translated into, _I'm not sure, but there's a good chance that yes, you're stuck._ Which meant . . . what, really? Maoh Mode—having access to that amount of energy—was _useful_. And I didn't seem to be glowing right now. The only thing obviously weird about me was that resonant quality in my voice, and there had to be some way to fix that, or at least hide it. Speech therapy, maybe, or some kind of illusion. 

" _As long as I have you, I guess it doesn't matter,_ " I said, and the kiss that followed made me seriously consider the merits of spending the afternoon in bed. And then, with some of the worst timing I had ever encountered, my stomach growled. 

Geneus smiled. "I will send one of the servants for some food, and to tell your brother that you are awake." 

I almost groaned. I mean, I love Yuuri, but I just knew he was going to fuss. Sometimes he reminds me way too much of Mom. 

Thankfully, the food arrived first—a small portion of fish served over crisp greens, a pot of Cimaronese tea, and a large bowl of fruit. It seemed that the holy sword was already doing this country some good, especially now that it didn't have to— 

I'd just picked up my teacup. Carefully, I set it down again. 

" _I promised Vetruan that we would try to do something to help the other Originators,_ " I said. 

Geneus nodded. "I was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving them here in any case. Murata—" His lip curled only slightly with distaste as he spoke the name. "—has been researching the seals on the jars, and we believe we now know what they used. Fortunately, plants that had disappeared from this land long ago are now flourishing again, and we hope to be able to create a fresh batch of the compound within the next day or so." 

" _Do you think we really can do anything to help them?_ " I said. 

My fiancé smiled. "I have learned never to underestimate you or your brother. It may take time, but I believe we will find a way." 

I was able to eat all the fish, most of the greens, and some of the fruit before the outer door swung open and Yuuri came barging in. 

Geneus sighed, cradling his teacup between his hands. "My Lord Maoh, I believe we have already had a conversation about doors and knocking. While you may only have interrupted your brother's meal this time, I suggest you consider what you _might_ have walked in on, and attempt to be more careful in the future." 

"He's got you there, Shibuya," came Murata's voice from the hallway. 

Yuuri blinked. "But it's _Shouri_ ," he said, as though that was supposed to explain something. 

" _It isn't like when you were six and I was eleven, you know,_ " I said as Murata and Josak trooped in behind my brother. 

"Shouri, your voice . . . are you still—" 

" _Stuck in Maoh Mode, as far as we can tell,_ " I said. " _It doesn't seem to be causing me any problems, so I figure I'll just have to get used to it. It isn't like anyone who doesn't know what my voice used to sound like is going to notice there's anything weird about me._ " 

"Mom's going to . . ." Yuuri trailed off in mid-sentence, and frowned. "Actually, I'm not sure what Mom's going to do. I guess we'll just have to find out." 

_Ulp._ I hadn't even thought about what Mom might do when she got a look at me as I now was. Okay, so there were some positive scenarios, but there were a couple . . . Cutting my hair again _might_ head some of them off, but Geneus liked it so much that— 

"Cheer up, Shibuya's-big-brother—when you tell her about the wedding, chances are that nothing else about you is going to be able to hold her attention. Have you set a date yet?" Murata asked cheerily. 

I forced my mouth shut. I was _not_ going to rise to the little bastard's bait. _Four thousand years of life experience, and all he ever seems to do with it is play with people's heads . . ._

"Not yet," Geneus said evenly. "We will not be having it in Seisakoku, so allow something over a month to return to Shin Makoku, and several more weeks for the preparations—while I do not intend to permit Lord von Christ to arrange the ceremony itself, we will have to give the reception afterwards over to him lest he collapse in despair . . . and there is one thing that I will need to take care of myself. Also, Shouri's family and the Maoh of Earth need to be informed. The earliest auspicious day for which we could have all of that done would be the spring equinox." 

"You intend to have the wedding on this side, then," Murata said. "And in the old style?" 

"We had not spoken of it," Geneus admitted, a shadow crossing his face. 

" _It's fine,_ " I said instantly. "How _we do it isn't a big deal to me, and this . . . it's important to you, isn't it? I want you to be happy._ " 

"Then . . . on the spring equinox, at Shin'ou's temple." Geneus smiled suddenly. "And he will deserve being forced to witness every moment of it." 

Murata and Josak both snickered. I touched my earring and swallowed. It was a big, big step, and it was all going to be real very soon indeed . . . and I wasn't going to change my mind about it. I wanted him there, beside me, for the rest of my life, and all of my lives to come. My Geneus. 

"That should give Mama-san a couple of days to pick out a dress, if we go back tonight the way Shibuya and I were talking about," Murata said. "They're probably wondering what's happened to us by now—there's a limit to how much time can be made to flex between the two worlds, so it has to have been several hours." 

Another swallow. I'd allowed the idea of going back to Earth to recede into a sort of haze of _not-yet_ over the past several weeks, but now suddenly it was right there in front of my nose again, and I was feeling something that was . . . almost panic. Geneus must have sensed it, because his maryoku curled around mine, invisibly caressing and soothing. 

"Shouri? Are you okay?" 

" _Just trying to figure out how I'm going to arrange my schedule,_ " I said. " _My classes and Bob and a husband—and I expect it isn't going to be all that long, Earth-time, before we have kids . . ._ " 

"And Mom's still going to expect you to show up for supper at least a couple of nights a week," Yuuri said, sounding almost sympathetic. 

" _I'll make it work somehow,_ " I said. " _For now—shoo, you three. I need a bath, and then I'm going to have to pack up, if we're leaving tonight._ " 

Not that I really had all that much to pack, I reflected as I contemplated my worldly possessions, now laid out on the bed.. A few clothes, mostly borrowed, which I wouldn't be able to wear on Earth unless I wanted people staring at me in the streets. Two swords, one steel and one maseki, which I'd have to hide under the bed if I brought them over. A few oddments. Other than the earring that was never going to come off, the only thing I really wanted to bring was my comb. The rest, Geneus would be taking with him on the ship. 

"You do need that bath," Geneus said quietly from behind me. "And so do I, for that matter—I have not been willing to go further than the anteroom since we brought you back here." 

" _I was going to ask you to wash my back,_ " I admitted with a grin, but Geneus was frowning. " _What is it?_ " 

"Your voice . . . I think . . . Will you permit me an experiment, beloved?" 

" _Sure,_ " I said. 

Geneus put his hand against my throat. "Say something." 

" _Like what?_ " 

"That will suffice. This may sting a little." 

Actually, it was more of a tickle. It didn't sting until I coughed, and the warmth of healing maryoku repressed that reflex almost immediately. 

"I'm okay," I said immediately, and my voice was . . . well, a little bit hoarse, but the weird resonant quality was gone. "Thanks." 

"My pleasure. Shall we head to the baths now?" 

I wasn't about to object. I mean, I did stink, and, well, naked Geneus was always good. 

I have to admit that I spent more time watching him wash than I did washing myself. The sunlight dappling his skin with rose and gold, the graceful movements as he rinsed his hair . . . and the sidelong glances that showed he was watching me right back. 

"I never did get to make love to you here," I said as we slipped into the sun-warmed courtyard pool together. 

"Unfortunately, I suspect that another attempt would just be interrupted in the same way as the last. Perhaps we should ask your brother to give us access to the Maoh's private bath on our wedding night." 

"And lock the door," I agreed, with a goofy smile. "Geneus, about the wedding . . . what did Murata mean by 'in the old style'?" 

"The typical form of Mazoku weddings changed when the worship of Shin'ou as a god began to crowd out the worship of the spirits. The old ceremony took the form of a simple exchange of vows in front of a small number of witnesses, with no speech-making or presiding priest or other such fripperies. There is also one custom peculiar to the Soukoku that I wish to enact, if you do not object." 

I shook my head. "I told you before, I don't care about the details. If this is what you want—what you need to do to feel married—I'll be happy to do it for you." 

"That is precisely why I need it," Geneus admitted. "I have been married more than a dozen times in other lives, but never with the ceremony Shin'ou and I would have shared if events had gone differently four thousand years ago. If this is to be . . . everything that we both hope for . . . then it must be done in this way." 

"Just please tell me that I'm not going to have to do anything embarrassing." 

My fiancé smiled. "There will be less than a dozen people present regardless, and I do _not_ intend to follow the form from what is now Rochefort Province, since I have no desire for the witnesses to see either of us naked." 

I spluttered, then started to laugh. Somehow, being teased by Geneus was different from being teased by Murata—I think it's the same as the difference between someone laughing with you and someone laughing at you. 

"The only difficulty I anticipate lies in finding enough witnesses to keep the two sides balanced. If you are to have your entire family present, I will need at least three." 

"Is having the same number of witnesses for both sides a requirement?" I asked, and was unsurprised when he nodded. "Well, Josak will be glad to stand for you, I'm sure, and wasn't Heike talking about heading for Shin Makoku? And Shin'ou—that's why you wanted this at the temple, isn't it? So that he would have to watch? And—" 

"Me," said Ken Murata, plopping himself into the water beside us. 

I gave him a Look. "Do you have bath radar or something, friend-of-my-brother?" 

Geneus also gave him a Look, although not quite the same one. "You . . ." 

Murata offered us both a crooked smile. "We're twins of a sort, and it's occurred to me that you don't actually have to _like_ your relatives. Anyway, that's four witnesses for each side, assuming that this Heike person turns up and that Bob wants to attend. Plus Greta, but she's underage and won't count towards the tally." 

My fiancé looked like someone had hit him over the head with one of Yuuri's baseball bats, and I suspected I knew why. _Twins, of a sort._ How long had it been since he'd had a family? Geneus Stornway probably hadn't spent much time with his relatives (assuming that any of them had been better disposed toward him than his mother), and they were all dead two thousand years ago. 

The two sages stared at each other for several moments. Then Murata turned away and Geneus rose to climb out of the bath, leaving me unsure of exactly what they'd been trying to communicate to each other. In the end, I decided it was probably none of my business. If I tried to inject myself into every aspect of Geneus' life, we would just end up resenting each other. 

That evening, after supper, we went back to the baths, where it seemed like half the population of the palace had clustered around the courtyard pool. Geneus had insisted on being there, of course, and I'd been expecting Conrad and Wolfram and Josak and Saralegui (which meant also Beryes) would want to see us off, but I hadn't been expecting Yelshi-younger to turn up, or Alazon, or Calmeth, and even a sheepish-looking Kellellan, who limped in on a slave's arm with splints on all four limbs. 

Saralegui gave Yuuri a sly grin as my brother considered the courtyard pool. "You know, I'm almost tempted to jump in there with you. I'm getting more and more curious about this Earth place." 

"I doubt you'd like sleeping on our couch," I said dryly. 

"Mmm. Perhaps not." The expression on his face told another story, though. Saralegui was going to be reliant on the charity of others for a while yet, and it galled him, no matter how he tried to hide it. 

Geneus didn't say anything as I embraced and kissed him, but his eyes spoke of worry. And loneliness, already setting in. 

"I'll be back before you know it," I whispered to him, and his arms tightened around me for a moment before he let go. 

Murata had been talking in low tones with Yelshi, but he was clearly done with whatever he had to say . . . and impatient to get going. I wondered if Yuuri even realized that what hit him was a hip throw rather than a stumble—Murata was good at making things _look_ like accidents. 

I sighed and climbed down into the water with them. It was colder now that the sun wasn't angling down on the courtyard, and the tile covering the bottom was slightly rough under my bare feet (I'd decided that there was no point in ruining a pair of boots just to get from here to our bathtub, so I'd packed them with the other stuff that was taking the slow boat back to Shin Makoku). 

Yuuri took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and the water began to swirl. I tried to relax and let it drag me down. With my maryoku senses, I could feel the Eternal Ocean opening up in front of us, linking all the places where there was water. I could even feel the place Yuuri was trying to draw us towards, the pattern that represented the water in the bathtub of a certain suburban Tokyo home . . . 

I think I may actually have surfaced for a moment before pain shot through my entire body. It hurt so much I couldn't even scream. I felt like I was going to die . . . and then the water yanked me back under, sending Yuuri and Murata and I somersaulting head over heels back into the Eternal Ocean. 

The pain faded almost instantly, but I'd lost all sense of direction. Trying not to panic, I searched for something to orient myself. I touched a familiar pattern and somehow got us all pointed toward it. 

The whirlpool vomited us back up again, and I felt rough ceramic under my knees. Strong arms gripped me and hauled me to my feet. 

"I felt the connection distort," Geneus said in my ear. "Are you well?" His power was already moving over my skin, searching for injury. 

"I seem to be okay now, but for a few seconds it felt like I was going to die," I said, between gulps of welcome air. Then another thought popped into my head. "Yuuri! Is he—" 

"We're both here, Shibuya's-big-brother. And we're both fine. Whatever hurt you, we didn't feel it." 

"Does this mean that we're stuck here again, the way I was after the trip to Svelera?" Yuuri said. 

"At least you're not freaking out about it this time, wimp." Wolfram scowled at my brother, but it didn't do a very good job of hiding his concern. 

"I think that only Shouri is barred," Geneus said slowly, and I felt my blood freeze. "It felt as though the spirits were drawing him back . . . I may be wrong. I _hope_ I am wrong." 

"Well, there's an obvious way to find out, isn't there?" Murata said. 

"Do you think you are able to attempt the passage again?" Geneus asked softly. "I will support you as much as I can." 

I nodded grimly. "Yuuri, get out of the water. This shouldn't take long." 

I extended my focus into the water and through it, with Geneus' power melding with the edges of mine and buoying me up. The ocean was warm and welcoming, but now that I was paying more attention to my internal sensations, I felt like there was a cable running through my brain—through my maryoku—with the ends anchored in the other world. It would allow me to go only so far away before forcing me back. 

I surfaced this time in what I hoped was a more dignified way, rising smoothly out of the water and taking deep, slow breaths. 

"There's definitely something not quite right," I said, meeting Murata's eyes through his water-spangled glasses. "I don't know what it is exactly." Although I had a nasty suspicion, and I suspected Geneus and Murata did too. "You two should probably go on ahead while we try to figure it out." 

"Shouri—" 

"I'm fine," I said. Forcing myself to believe it. "I'll go back to Shin Makoku with Geneus and the others. If we can't come up with a fix for this ourselves, Ulrike or even Shin'ou may be able to help. In the meanwhile, I need you to tell Mom and Dad—and Bob—that it may be a little while before I can get back to Earth. Sorry for sticking you with telling them about the wedding," I added as Geneus helped me out of the water. 

"It's okay," Yuuri said. "We'll manage. You'll take care of yourself, right?" 

"If not, I will take care of him," Geneus said. "You have my promise that I will not leave your brother's side until you and he meet again." 

Yuuri's smile seemed a bit strained, but he said, "Thank you, Geneus-san," anyway. 

My brother's departure with only Murata in tow went off without a hitch—I could sense the path they were following back to Earth. It wasn't until the last bit of movement had faded from the surface of the water that Geneus spoke again. 

"We should go inside and change," he said softly. It was all I could do to nod, to keep my spine straight and my head high as we left the baths together. 

I had been playing with the idea of staying in this world ever since we had left Small Cimaron, but that didn't mean I had wanted it to actually happen. And even if it had, I'd expected it would be under my control, that I'd be able to take care of the loose ends of my life on Earth, to explain my choice to Bob and to my parents . . . I hadn't wanted anything like this, and I felt cold and frightened and, for the first time in a very long time, alone. 

Geneus guided me through the halls and into our suite. There, behind closed doors, he unbuttoned my shirt for me, undressing me like a department store mannequin while I fought to hold onto the rags of my composure, and put his arms around me. 

"Shouri. Beloved." 

I blinked, feeling my eyes sting. There was a tremour at the back of my throat. "It's the Maoh Mode thing, isn't it? The spirits want me to stay here." 

"I fear so. I wish there were something I could do to help, but I think that whatever it was inside you that allowed you to control that power is broken forever." 

"Then . . . I really am trapped." 

My fiancé nodded. 

I told myself that I couldn't let this get me down. I was still among friends. And as prisons went, Blood Pledge Castle was a pretty damned nice one. But there was still an ache, an emptiness that kept trying to overwhelm me. 

Geneus offered me a wry, knowing, pain-filled smile. "I know what it means to be an exile. You have every right to weep and rage and curse the gods and the spirits. But if you attempt to hold all the pain inside, there will come a time when you will shatter. You know you do not have to pretend to be strong in front of me." 

"I . . ." There was a massive lump in my throat. When I tried to force it out, it became a sob, and then I was crying, bawling helplessly like a three-year-old while Geneus held me and stroked my back and offered what comfort he could. 

It helped a little, but we both knew it could never be enough.


	51. Interlude:  A Mother's Warmth

Yuuri stares down at his plate of beef curry. It's suppertime at the Shibuya household, but he has no appetite. He's too aware of the empty place at the table. Shouri's been absent from meals before, of course, but it's usually because Bob has something for him to do. 

"Yuu-chan, if you don't eat, you're never going to get any taller." 

He forces a sickly smile. "Sorry, Mom." 

"It's _Mama_ ," Miko Shibuya corrects him firmly. "Now, tell us what's wrong. It's about Sho-chan, isn't it? You've been looking at his chair every five seconds." 

Yuuri wishes he knew a curse evil enough to inflict on Murata for bailing on him mere seconds after they'd gotten out of the bathtub. _"Stuff to do" my ass. You just didn't want to deal with this._ "Um, it's two separate things, really." He takes a deep breath. This should _not_ be harder than negotiating a treaty with a hostile nation . . . but somehow it is. "I guess I'll start with the good part. Shouri's getting married." _And hopefully that'll draw so much of her attention that she'll forget there's a bad part._

His mother's eyes light up. "Married? _Really?_ Do I know her?" 

" _His_ name is Geneus, and no, you've never met." 

"Another man?" His father sounds . . . more than disappointed. "I'd hoped that Shouri, at least, would have . . . an ordinary marriage." 

" _Mou_ , Uma-chan, if they love each other, that's the important thing—right, Yuu-chan?" His mother smiles at him. 

Yuuri doesn't know if what he has with Wolfram would qualify as _love_ , although he knows that's what she's trying to imply. "Really, I've never seen Shouri act this way around anyone," he offers. "You can just about see the red thread tying their fingers together." 

" _Oh . . ._ " His mother's smile gets even wider. "I'd almost given up on Sho-chan finding anyone," she says. "He's so _serious_ sometimes—it never seemed like there was any room for love there." 

"Geneus is serious too," Yuuri admits. "And really, really bright. They fit together well." 

Miko is just about bouncing in her seat. "They've already set a date, haven't they? When? Oh, what am I going to _wear_? It would be wrong for the mother of the groom to have an _old_ dress on, wouldn't it?" 

"The spring equinox in Shin Makoku," Yuuri says. "So you have a few days to get ready before I take you over there." He clears his throat—best to say it _now_ , before his mother gets too many ideas bouncing around in her head. "Try not to overwhelm Geneus—his family all died a long time ago, so he might not quite know how to deal with having parents again." _Especially_ someone like Miko Shibuya. 

"Oh, the poor man! Don't worry, Yuu-chan, I'll be gentle with him." 

Now Shouma clears his throat. "This is all wonderful, but why isn't _Shouri_ the one telling us about it?" 

_Oh, hell._ "That's the bad part. Shouri . . . tried to come back with us, but . . . something went wrong. It looks like he's stuck on the other side until someone figures out how to fix it." 

Miko's smile fades on the instant, and Yuuri scrambles to find something reassuring to say. "It isn't like he's in any danger—Geneus and Conrad and Wolfram and Josak were all with him when I left! You'll see him again in a few days." 

His mother heaves her chair back from the table and plants her hands on her hips. "We'll just have to bring along anything he might need," she says firmly. "Don't worry, Sho-chan! Mama is coming for you!" 

Yuuri hides his face in his hands as she marches up the stairs, headed for Shouri's room. He's probably going to have to remind her a dozen or more times that there's no electricity or Internet or cell phone towers in the other world, and so several of Shouri's formerly prized possessions won't be of much use to him there. 

His father scoops up a couple more forkfuls of curry, then puts the utensil down and regards his son. "There's something else, isn't there? Something that you don't want your mother to hear." 

It's easy to forget that his father isn't stupid and has something of a knack for reading people. Miko's forceful personality eclipses Shouma so thoroughly sometimes that he almost seems to fade into the wallpaper. 

Yuuri lowers his voice to a near-whisper. "It's . . . the mess we got tangled up in . . . Shouri nearly killed someone. The only reason he didn't is because I stopped him. I'm . . . confused, I guess. I didn't think he could _do_ something like that. He's changed almost completely, and it feels _wrong_." 

"Your brother was overdue to grow up," Shouma replies, just as quietly. "From the sound of it, it's just happened awfully fast." 

Yuuri frowns. "But Shouri _was_ grown up, even before this started." 

Shouma shakes his head. "Remember that business with the stomach warmers, when you were packing to go to Switzerland? That you complained about for weeks, afterwards? Were those the actions of an adult? A part of Shouri has always been stuck in the past—in the time when you were his to protect. If he's finally managed to pry himself loose from that, it'll be good for you both in the long run. Even if you don't agree with the way he is now, or his decisions." His father pauses. "This Geneus person . . . I know they're in love, but do you think he's going to be good for Shouri?" 

Yuuri tries to gather his scattered wits—Shouma's few sentences have given him a lot to digest. "Geneus . . . isn't who I would have chosen for him, maybe, but . . . they fit together. He's . . . well, actually . . ." 

"What are you two gossiping over?" Miko asks with a smile as she carries a massive armload of stuff down the stairs. "Is it anything juicy? Come on, come on, tell me!" 

"Just . . . guy stuff," Yuuri says. 

Miko blinks several times. "Oh . . . hasn't anyone explained that to you yet? I thought they talked about condoms and stuff like that in schools these days, but if you don't understand—" 

Yuuri waves his hands frantically. "No, no, it's nothing like that! Nothing like that at all!" 

He is _never_ going to forgive Murata for skipping out on him and leaving him to explain all this alone.


	52. Chapter 41

Spring in Shin Makoku was a wet time. Rain ran down the outside of the window across from me, marbling the light that fell across the heavy book on majutsu and souls that Geneus had found for me to read. Each drop splashed my maryoku with a subtle sensation of welcome and happiness. The book, however, was dry as dust, and I paused at the end of a chapter to rub at my temples and listen to the soft scritch of a quill pen on rag paper. The high back of my chair kept me from seeing more of my fiancé than a rapidly moving elbow, but I did have a good enough angle to be able to tell that the stack of tax reports Gwendal had given him to look at was dropping at a rapid clip as he analyzed them and noted discrepancies. 

It was a good day to stay inside and read, and the big, well-stuffed leather armchair that I'd had dragged from the depths of a back storeroom was comfortable, but I still felt restless. Günter and Gwendal and all the others had been more than welcoming of us, but Blood Pledge Castle still didn't feel like home to me, and maybe it never would. There was something missing, something whose absence made me ache inside, although I wasn't entirely sure what it was. 

If I had found any balance or a tentative peace, it was mostly thanks to Geneus. He'd been incredibly patient with me on the trip back from Seisakoku, pushing me gently to eat and to exercise, and always knowing when I needed to be alone, or cuddle, or talk, or make love. And over time, the grey emptiness inside me had thinned out and taken on colour and life once again. 

My sword, the steel one that Geneus had enchanted, was propped against the arm of my chair, and I briefly considered belting it on and going down to the guards' practice area to find someone to train with, on the theory that it's a lot more difficult to be restless when you're tired. Then I looked at the window again, grimaced, and shook my head minutely. I did have a few changes of clothes that were actually _mine_ now, but there weren't enough of them yet that I felt happy with the idea of going outside and sliding around in the mud. Besides, welcoming water-spirits or no, the rain was still cold. 

The quill pen fell silent, and Geneus' chair rasped against the floor as he pushed it back. I heard the soft scuff of his footsteps as he moved around the room—he didn't try to move silently anymore, at least around me, since he knew I could sense the shift of his maryoku. 

He entered my field of vision from the left and spent a moment looking out that floor-to-ceiling window. He'd told me that this room, just off the library, had been intended as a scriptorium. Hand-copying of books needed good natural light, but since they'd invented the printing press in this world some twenty-four centuries ago, the room was no longer needed for its original purpose. It had been serving as an overflow storage area for random items when we'd commandeered it as an office. 

Geneus had finally gotten some changes of clothes too. His tunic today was a rich purple, shot through with silver threads that matched the trim on the black shirt and trousers underneath. Definitely an improvement over the several days he'd spent raiding Günter's closet when we'd first gotten back here—pale colours didn't suit him. 

"Time that we both took a break," he said. "Shall I send down to the kitchens for tea?" 

"Sounds good." 

I watched him walk to the door, speak to someone outside, and walk back again. His movements were easy, body language suggesting a relaxed confidence that had slowly slid into place over the weeks we'd been in Shin Makoku. Finally, after so many years of waiting and wanting, he was home, and I was happier for him than I could express. 

He dropped into a chair that sat at a ninety-degree angle to mine, and offered me a warm smile. "Three more days until you are mine forever." 

"Three more days until I find out what's in that box of yours," I retorted, smiling back. 

His eyes twinkled, but he didn't answer. He'd brought the box in question back with him from Shin'ou's Temple, after a brief trip he'd made up there not long after we'd gotten back. It was made of metal, tarnished black with age, locked with majutsu, and stamped with the mark of two interlocked crescent moons that was the Great Sage's seal—the same mark Geneus now used on the official documents that he was responsible for. 

I had a seal now too, since Gwendal had dumped the routine minutiae of managing the palace into my lap when I'd gone to him begging for a job to take my mind off my situation. I'd spent days agonizing over what to put on it, and fielding suggestions from Josak that, while they _sounded_ innocent enough, had always been spoken with a smirk that made me wonder just what the symbolism involved would have meant to a native of Shin Makoku. 

In the end, I'd chosen something that most people from this world wouldn't be able to understand at first glance: a crescent moon cupping a globe of the Earth, centered on Japan. A reminder both of where I came from and why I was here. 

That box, though . . . it had been sitting on a shelf on the far side of the room for weeks now, and Geneus hadn't once opened it, not even to verify the contents. I'd sounded it with maryoku and found maseki, and earth, but in such a chaotic and formless mixture that I couldn't tell anything more, and it was driving me nuts in a low-key kind of way. My fiancé had clammed up after telling me it had something to do with the wedding, taking what seemed to be almost a Murata-like pleasure in messing with my head. Given the apparent age of the box, it had to be something he had originally prepared for the wedding between himself and Shin'ou all those centuries ago, but that didn't really help me. 

There was a knock on the door, and I blinked. "That was quick. Come in!" 

It wasn't Lasagna or Sangria with a tea tray. "Are you sure it's safe, Shibuya's-big-brother?" 

"We're not doing anything that Greta hasn't seen before, let alone you," I said, and Murata made an amused sound. 

"Good, because I came up here to warn you. Yuuri's managed to divert everyone on a quick tour of the castle, but they're going to be here in no more than ten minutes—Yuuri, Greta, your parents, Bob, and José. And Conrad and Wolfram and anyone else they attach along the way." 

I blinked. " _José_? Why is _he_ here?" 

"Because I asked him to be," Murata replied unexpectedly. He was frowning as he dodged around the arm of my chair to lean against the wall near the window, and his hair was damp—he and the others had to have arrived up at the temple. 

"Don't tell me you still think I need psychiatric help," I said, rolling my eyes. 

"Don't you? You're stuck in Maoh Mode and can't move between worlds, and you're telling me there's nothing wrong with you?" 

"That isn't _psychological_ ," I snapped. 

Murata gave me a Look over the rims of his glasses. "Then what would you call it?" 

"Trauma from having had an Originator and the spirit of an undead Shinzoku fight it out inside my head," I said firmly. 

"Even though no one can find anything physically wrong with you?" 

"And just who would know what to look for, friend-of-my-brother? You have to admit that what happened to me can't have been duplicated very often in this world's history." 

"Still . . ." 

"Shin'ou's hairy ass, will you give it a _rest_ already? If I could fix this by thinking happy thoughts, don't you think I would have?" 

"I don't think you need to 'think happy thoughts'—I think you need to consider what you really want, and why." 

I looked around for something to throw at him—the book I'd been reading was too heavy and might have broken the window if I'd messed up my aim—but before I could grab a knitted plush . . . something . . . off the nearest shelf, I heard voices in the hallway. 

" . . . up here this time of day," Wolfram was saying. 

"Here?" I could almost see Yuuri blink in puzzlement. "Isn't this a storeroom?" 

" . . . cleaned it out for use as an office," Gwendal said, quietly enough that I lost the first part of the sentence. 

"You aren't making Shouri do _paperwork_ , are you?" 

"He requested it," Gwendal said firmly. 

"Your Majesty—" Conrad began. 

" _Yuuri._ " 

"Yuuri. I really think you should knock." 

"You're probably right. I don't want to see anything like that." 

"Like what?" 

"He means that we might walk in on them doing something . . . private, Miko-san." Well, at least Conrad was trying to be tactful. 

"Before the wedding?" Mom sounded . . . I don't know. Approving, I think. Not for the first time, I wondered what really went on inside her head. 

"For at least three months now, this world's time," Yuuri said, ruefully. 

"Well, they're both men. They have . . . needs, you know?" I nearly hid my face in my hands. José really had tagged along. "And it isn't like either of them can get pregnant. Really, it's healthy to have an active sex life at Shouri's age . . . although I don't generally work with anyone old enough for that to be a consideration." 

I wanted to sink into the floor. Instead, I put my book on the windowsill and pushed myself up out of my chair. 

"If I'm not standing up, my mother'll probably knock over the chair too," I explained to a curious Geneus, who immediately got up as well and slid his hand into mine. I braced myself against the wall beside the window, and glared at Murata. "The least you can do is let them in, friend-of-my-brother." 

Murata smirked. "I thought you would never ask, Shibuya's-big-brother." 

"I don't see how he and you could _ever_ have been the same person," I murmured to Geneus as the other Sage headed for the door. 

"His better qualities are not often evident," my fiancé agreed, "although to what extent he has merely concealed them rather than sloughing them off utterly, I am somewhat uncertain." 

When Murata opened the door, Yuuri entered first. I saw his shoulders sag with relief when he realized that Geneus and I weren't doing anything more risque than holding hands. Mom came in directly behind him . . . and stopped, staring. 

"Sho-chan?" 

"Hi, Mom," I said. "Sorry for letting . . . all of this . . . happen without notice." 

" _Mou_ , as if that matters." She crossed the room in ten swift strides, and I found myself being treated to a rib-bending Miko Shibuya bear hug. "You look well, but . . . so grown up!" 

"I was grown up before!" I protested . . . but I also wrapped my arm around her and hugged her back. 

Her eyes traced their way down the arm I wasn't squeezing her with, to where my hand was conjoined with my fiancé's, and then back up again. "You must be Geneus." 

Geneus gave her a little bow. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Miko-dono." 

"No need to be so formal—call me Mama!" 

Yuuri groaned. "Mom . . . I thought we'd already talked about this." 

Mom blinked and turned around to face him. "Surely even you don't think that's coming on too strong, Yuu-chan—it's such a little thing, even if you and Sho-chan won't do it . . ." 

With her distracted, I could finally spare a little attention for looking at everyone else. I couldn't read Bob's expression, but that was normal—he was tough to make out even on the rare occasions when he took his dark glasses off. Dad was smiling as he watched us, José looked a bit overwhelmed, and . . . what was Lady Celi doing here?! 

She must have noticed me staring at her, because she smiled and approached us. "You didn't think I would miss a wedding, did you?" 

"I hadn't really thought that far," I admitted. "I guess it would be out of character." 

Celi laughed. "Well, I suppose it's perfectly normal for you to be wrapped up in your handsome young husband. A shame that I didn't spot him first . . ." 

"Forgive me, my lady," Geneus said, "but despite your charm and elegance, I do not believe we would have suited." 

"Oh, my . . . You have quite a bit of charm yourself, don't you?" 

Geneus inclined his head. "It flatters me that you say so." 

"We should move to somewhere with more chairs," I said. "I'm sure you've all got a lot of questions, and there's no reason we should have to answer them in here." 

"We've arranged to have afternoon tea laid out in the family dining room," Conrad said. "And extra chairs." 

"Perfect!" Celi said with a brilliant smile. "Why don't we head over there right now?" 

There was a general exodus in the direction of the door, with Geneus and I bringing up the rear. I was most of the way across the room when I realized that Bob had hung back, and was watching me. 

I squeezed Geneus' hand to get his attention, and nodded in the direction of the Maoh of Earth. My fiancé eyed the middle-aged Mazoku in his out-of-place business suit thoughtfully, then nodded. 

"I will make your excuses for you, beloved," he said. 

"This shouldn't take too long." I leaned in to steal a quick kiss, then let him go. A moment later, the door closed, leaving me alone with Bob, who slowly raised his hands to his face and removed his dark glasses, revealing his eyes, shot through with their usual startling flashes of yellow. For him, it was . . . an uncommon offer of intimacy. 

I took a deep breath. It was time. The words were blocking my throat, though. I was going to have to force them out. _Say something. Say anything._ "I'm sorry. It . . . looks like I'm not going to be able to carry through on my promises to you. I—" 

"Shouri. Calm yourself. I always knew there was a chance I would lose you to this world." 

I blinked. _What?_

One corner of Bob's mouth curled slightly upward. "From the moment I first saw you, cradled in your father's arms, I knew that you had been born with a stronger gift of maryoku than anyone on Earth since our ancestor, Cristel Wincott. It didn't seem . . . appropriate. It's been centuries since there was anything in our world that needed that power. And then, with only a few hours of warning, Conrart Weller and his charge were dropped into my lap, and I understood that you had shown up because you were going to be needed. You were the reason I placed that soul with the Shibuya family." 

That shook me, I had to admit. I'd always thought Yuuri had gone to us because Bob trusted our parents—I'd never even _guessed_ that it might be me. 

"I offered to train you, not because I truly expected you to become my successor, but because I knew that Shin'ou had put you in my path for a reason," Bob continued, strolling over to the window and staring out at the rain. "I also knew that part of you would never entirely belong in the world of your birth. Inevitably, this world would call to you, and given how focused you always were on your brother, and the fact that his place was going to be here . . . I resigned myself to your departure years ago." 

"Then all that grumbling you did . . ." I said numbly. 

He actually smiled. It looked wrong, even in the ghostly reflection off the window glass. "I won't say that I wouldn't have _liked_ you to be able to take over from me, even if it was only for a few years. I'm not all that old by the standards of Shin Makoku, I suppose, but on Earth, I'm ridiculously ancient. I'm overdue for a rest, and you have a quick mind and a certain charisma that could have taken you far. That may yet take you somewhere, here. Really, you're likely to have a more lasting effect on the future as a nobleman of Shin Makoku than you would as a financier and politician on Earth. There's this, too . . ." 

"What?" I said after he'd been silent for several moments. 

"Have you ever wondered why I refuse to have anything homelike in my vicinity?" 

I shrugged. "From time to time. It was never all that important to me, except when my mother was complaining about it." 

Bob flattened one hand against the surface of the window. "I was married once." 

"You were?" That did surprise me, because he'd never mentioned it before, and I thought I knew him as well as anyone. 

"A long time before you were born—before your father was born, even. While my father was still alive." 

"Was she . . . human?" 

Bob shook his head. "Actually, we were third cousins . . . but I had maryoku and she didn't. We thought at first that we could make it work anyway—we were young, and stupid—but that one difference led to too many others. Lifespans. Abilities. In the end, it destroyed our happiness." He turned away from the window. Looked at me. "There have been exactly two Mazoku with measurable amounts of maryoku born on Earth in the last fifty years: you and your brother. I don't say that it would have been impossible for you to find someone who would have stayed beside you despite your differences, but the odds wouldn't have been good. If you had asked me, I would have told you that you were making the right choice. Although I would never have expect you to captivate an incarnation of the Great Sage, whom Cristel's surviving diaries describe as a proud and lonely man, he does seem to care for you." 

"We ease the loneliness for each other, I think." I could have said lots more, but how Geneus and I fit together . . . that was private. 

I realized suddenly that I was fiddling with my earring, and lowered my hand. 

Bob turned back to the window—I guess there were some things he found it easier to talk about that way. "Shouri, you are the closest thing I have ever had to a son. I want you to be happy." 

I nodded, feeling tears sting the corners of my eyes. 

"We should go join the others," I forced myself to say. "They'll be wondering where we are, and Geneus can only make excuses for so long." 

"True enough. Even two thousand years of experience must have its limits." 

Once we were out in the hall, I wiped my eyes surreptitiously. I didn't want Geneus to know I had been crying—it would just distress him for no reason. 

In the family dining room, Greta had latched on to Dad, while Mom and Lady Celi had cornered my fiancé and were peppering him with questions. I got there just in time to catch the tail-end of one: "—have children?" 

"Well, we both want a large family," Geneus said. "However, we will need a few years to properly establish a household. Given that we are both in good health, there is no need to rush matters." 

"Don't keep us waiting too long," Celi said. "I'd like to be the surrogate for your first, but if it takes more than thirty years or so, the healers might not be willing to let me." 

"We would be honoured to have you bear our child, Celi-sama," Geneus said, with a slight bow—and without the least hint of pink in his face. I don't know how he did it, because given how hot my face was, I had to have gone beet red just listening in on the conversation. "And I expect it will be within the decade—while there may be no great hurry, I, for one, have waited long enough to hold my firstborn in my arms. The child of my true self, at last." 

Holding our firstborn . . . Oh, yes, I wanted that, with a deep, achy longing I hadn't allowed myself to admit to before. 

And as I watched them all—Mom still peppering Geneus with personal questions that he fielded with an aplomb I would never have been able to manage, Dad conversing with Conrad, Yuuri and Wolfram being drawn into something by Greta, and even José and Anissina starting to hit it off (potentially dangerous combination, that), the other ache inside me, the one that had been there since Seisakoku, began to fade. 

The thing I had been missing had a name, and it was "family".


	53. Chapter 42

I blinked. "You still haven't decided?" 

Yuuri grimaced. "Um, well, Günter keeps on going on about traditional gifts for newlyweds and what previous Maohs have given brothers who married during their reigns, but even _Ao_ would be able to tell that his suggestions are . . . um . . ." 

"Wildly inappropriate?" Geneus said with a smile from where he was seated beside me. Other than us, the sitting room on the ground floor of Shin'ou's temple was empty, since Yuuri had wanted this conversation to be private. 

"Pretty much," my brother said. "I get that it has to be something valuable, to show how important Shouri is to me, but solid gold soup tureens and crystal statues of dragons . . . I could grab something random from the treasury, I suppose, but that . . . can be kind of dangerous." 

"Indeed," Geneus said. "If I may make a suggestion, then?" 

"Sure," Yuuri said, but my fiancé—soon to be husband—was looking at me. I gave him a nod, although I had no more idea what he intended than Yuuri did. 

"There are no less than seven estates in the province governed directly by the Maoh that currently have no lords. Settle one of them on Shouri." Geneus held up a hand. "I should add that I do not make this request casually. The land is also a form of insurance. In the worst case, if something should happen to all three of us, the rents would provide for our children." 

"Nothing like that is going to happen—" 

"My lord Maoh— _Yuuri_. Even if you forge peace treaties with every human nation on the planet, accident or disease or natural disasters could still sweep the board clean. I have had it happen to me more than once. You cannot control everything, and while it may be your desire to hope for the best, as your servant and your kin-to-be, it is my task to plan for the eventualities you prefer not to think about." 

Yuuri frowned. Then he shrugged. "If you want it that badly, I'm okay with it. You said seven different estates—is there a particular one you'd like, or should I just pick a name out of a hat?" 

Geneus reached inside his tunic—rich blue today, the colour that most flattered him—and pulled out some papers. "These are deeds of transfer for an estate called Stromland, whose lordship has been vacant nearly thirteen hundred years. I suggest you speak to Lord von Christ and Lord von Voltaire before signing them. Of the other estates, three are very small, two have multiple possible heirs who are in contention with one another, and one should go to Lord Weller." 

"To Conrad?" 

"Unlike his brothers, Lord Weller is landless, which some might consider a poor reward for his service. The estate in question was used by Lady Celi as a retreat when she was still Maoh, and I believe her sons were raised there at least part of the time. It should stay in their family. You might also consider settling one of the small untenanted properties on Lieutenant Gurrier." 

My brother blinked several times. "Actually, that's a good idea. All of it. Thanks!" He picked up the papers, folded them into quarters, and tucked them into his pants pocket. "I promised Mom that I'd go find them after I'd talked to you, so I guess I'll be seeing you guys in a few minutes." 

"As you say," Geneus replied, with that inclination of the shoulders that was more than a nod but not quite a bow. 

I was, I reflected as Yuuri left the room, glad that Shin Makoku didn't have that silly Western custom of the bride and the groom—or the groom and the groom, in this case—not being allowed to see each other on the day of the wedding, because Geneus looked magnificent. 

There was a baritone chuckle from behind me, and I turned sharply, nearly knocking over my chair. 

"Yuuri seems to have followed my lead in terms of giving the paperwork the respect it deserves," Shin'ou said with a smirk as he crossed the room and flopped into the empty chair opposite Geneus, who quirked an eyebrow. 

"On the contrary, the _present_ Maoh reads things before signing them, and while I have seen him fold documents sloppily and spill the odd drop of tea on them, I have yet to catch him stuffing the cushions with them, or using them to cover the floor of a deerhound kennel." 

"Well, I did rather dislike that deerhound, so I was hoping to bore it to death." 

I rolled my eyes . . . and wished I could actually ask a question like, _Are dogs in this world literate?_ without feeling, and likely sounding, like a total idiot. "Look, I realize this is your temple and everything, but why are you _here_ , in this particular room, ten minutes before the beginning of our wedding?" 

"To congratulate you, of course. And to give you your wedding present, although it won't take effect until tonight." And with those words, I felt the delicate touch of majutsu settling over me like a spiderweb. 

"That's supposed to happen _after_ the ceremony," I pointed out. 

"True, but I won't be able to attend the reception—can you imagine what kind of panic it would cause if I tried? And neither of you is going to call it off now." 

"You seem to be awfully certain of that." 

"I know you both very well. You aren't changeable men. You keep your promises, and hold to your loves regardless of the cost." 

"Not . . . entirely regardless," Geneus said softly. "There is a point at which everything breaks, Magnus. As you know well." 

Shin'ou had the grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry. I know I've given you very little in return for two thousand years of loyalty. There is no excuse for what I did to you." 

My fiancé held up his hand. "You have already apologized, and the purpose of the observation was not to reopen old wounds, but merely to remind you that you are not omniscient." 

There was an awkward silence. I forced myself to drop something into it before it went on too long. "I wouldn't have guessed that your real name was Magnus, but in a way, it suits you." 

"Don't tell anyone, or I'll do something creative to you," Shin'ou warned. 

"Shouri has already demonstrated himself able to keep those sorts of secrets," Geneus was saying as someone knocked on the door. 

"Shouri-sama! M'lord Sage! We're about ready for you." 

I swallowed. Hard. And heaved myself to my feet. "I guess it's time. Coming?" 

Geneus took my extended hand and let me pull him up. "I have no desire to force you to wait, beloved." 

An expression passed across Shin'ou's face and then was gone again too quickly for me to be able to tell for certain what it was, but I had the impression of . . . longing. 

The doors to the inner sanctuary of Shin'ou's Temple were open and unbarred and we entered them hand in hand. A grinning Josak swung them shut behind us and trotted along the edge of the room to take up his place near the altar, between Heike and Murata. Shin'ou, the damned cheater, must have teleported himself in or something, because he'd not only beaten us inside, but looked like he'd been there all along. Facing them stood Bob and my family. Mom and Greta had grins to rival Josak's, Yuuri was smiling kind of crookedly, Dad looked thoughtful, and Bob . . . looked like Bob. Heike, who had only made it here from Radford Province late yesterday evening, looked tired, but he was smiling anyway. Murata had light reflecting off his glasses and a grin even crookeder than Yuuri's. I wasn't sure whether that was good or not. 

Since the temple had no altar, someone had arranged the three remaining Forbidden Boxes side-by-side and covered them with a black silk cloth (making for some interesting symbolism), and on top of them sat Geneus' mystery box. 

We stopped in front of the boxes and turned to face our small audience, which had closed in to form a semi-circle between us and the doors. 

"Friends and kinsfolk, we thank you for coming here today to bear witness for us as we join our lives together." Geneus' voice wasn't loud, but it rang clearly through the room. 

"We also ask for the witness and blessing of the spirits that guided us to this place." We'd practiced this, and the words came out clear and firm despite my fears that I would stutter or mangle them somehow. 

Geneus finally, _finally_ reached over and broke the seal on that damned box, his power surging, then ebbing as he swung the lid open. Inside it was . . . sand? Or some kind of powdered crystal, laying there in colourful swirls . . . and it still felt like . . . Ground maseki? 

I didn't understand, but my fiancé's steady gaze asked for trust, and I wasn't about to deny it to him. I continued the ritual as we'd rehearsed it, rolling up the left sleeve of my jacket, then my shirt, almost to the elbow. Geneus rolled up his sleeve as well, then held out his hand, and we joined them, left palm to left palm, above the open casket. 

When he started to draw on my maryoku, I gave that willingly too, even though I didn't know what he wanted it for. Heat began to waft up from the casket, and then something that looked like an elongated blob of glowing jelly rose from the sand and wrapped itself around and between our wrists, binding them together. I could feel the warmth radiating from it, and the massive amount of maryoku Geneus was channeling into it, and I had the disturbing suspicion that my arm was wrapped in molten maseki, although it didn't seem to be burning me. 

"Shouri Shibuya, I offer myself to you as your husband, to remain at your side through this life and all of our lives to come." Geneus' eyes were intense and blazing with light as he met my gaze above our conjoined hands. 

"Geneus, I offer myself to you as your husband. I am yours in body, heart, and soul, and I will stay by your side until that soul crumbles." Murata, I noted out of the corner of my eye, was frowning. Presumably, he'd figured out what we were really promising each other, and didn't like it at all. 

Geneus smiled. "I am yours in all things, and that will not ever change." 

He manipulated the spell he was holding, and the two-finger-wide band of molten rock joining our wrists solidified and lost its glow, although our conjoined power still moved inside what now looked like intricately patterned translucent glass. I felt him snap the spell loose from us, leaving it embedded inside the unremovable wrist bands, at the same moment as I heard a crystalline chime and a crack ran through the maseki, dividing it in two and freeing me to unclasp his hand and lower my arm. As I did so, though, I could sense delicate threads of majutsu stretching between the wristlets we both now wore, and the pattern inside the stone rippled with shifting flashes of a dozen different colours. 

When he leaned in for a kiss—the one tradition that the two worlds shared—I met him halfway, feeling unexpectedly hungry for him. We only broke up when Josak started to applaud, mostly because I was afraid that Shin'ou would join him. 

Mom sniffled. "That was beautiful, but so short!" 

"The only reason Earth weddings take so long is the associated ritual," Murata said. "Bride and groom entering separately, supplications to the gods, that sort of thing. Shin Makoku has never had that first tradition, and in this case, the god's offered up his blessing without needing to be supplicated." He shot Shin'ou a nasty look, while the blonde did his best to look innocent. "I do wonder about your choice in wording, though. One of you, at least, should have known better." 

I snorted. "Stop being jealous. We wanted it, and we intend to live by it. That's all you need to know." 

Greta slipped her hand from Yuuri's and stepped forward. "Congratulations, Uncle Shouri, Uncle Geneus—isn't that what we're _supposed_ to be saying, instead of picking fights over silly stuff?" 

Yuuri smiled. "Yeah, that's exactly what we should be saying. Congratulations!" 

The semi-circle of witnesses broke up then, so that they could surround us properly. Mom hugged us both, which Geneus bore with good grace. Dad shook my new husband's hand. Josak clapped me on the back hard enough to stagger me. Shin'ou hugged us too . . . and groped Geneus' ass, which got him an elbow in the ribs. Heike shook both our hands. Even Bob cracked a smile. 

Murata kept slightly apart, but his expression had changed to something wistful—not so much as though he wished he had what we now had, but as though he wished he wished he had it. Something that I would need to work through at a later time, because if we were late for the reception, Günter was going to turn into a waterworks. 

There must have been five hundred people waiting for us in the main courtyard of Blood Pledge Castle. Most of them had been invited for political reasons rather than personal, though: the heads of the Ten Families and a host of lesser lords, plus an assortment of ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, many of whom I'd never met. But I'd known that would be the case, and resigned myself to it. There were still enough people there who wished us, personally, well to make mingling not too much of a chore. And the food was excellent, and the ice sculpture centerpiece—thanks to Yuuri's many vetoes—was a tasteful rendering of the Shin Makoku merlion crest, rather than the nudes that were apparently traditional for this sort of occasion. 

The wedding presents were . . . scary. _Five_ horses, including the bad-tempered animal Geneus had ridden through Cimaron, which Heike had included as a bit of a joke. The non-living gifts ranged from a . . . fascinatingly disturbing painting of my brother holding a lemon, from Stoffel von Spitzweg, to something large and mechanical from Anissina that I was afraid even to ask about. Plus a bunch of the kind of conventional stuff you get from rich people who don't know you very well, mostly expensive knick-knacks and bottles of wine. And, of course, the estate, which got a round of general applause when Yuuri announced it. And the deed to some kind of summer house in Radford Province, handed to me by a winking Max and a grinning Damyen. 

There were a couple of good items mixed in, though. A stack of old books that put a gleam in my husband's eye. A laptop and printer with a solar panel to charge them, given jointly by Bob and Murata. There was one large and profusely illustrated book I would have liked to whack Josak over the head with, though. I mean, gag gifts are one thing, but implying we needed a copy of the local equivalent of the Kama Sutra was almost insulting. 

We ate too much and drank too much, and danced a little as night fell and the party moved inside. And then finally the moon rose, and we were bundled off together to the bedroom we had been sharing since we'd gotten back from Seisakoku, and locked in for the night. 

I threw my swordbelt at one chair and my jacket at another, kicked my boots at the wall, and flopped back onto the bed with a sigh. "I'm glad that's over . . . and I know you are too," I added, touching the band of maseki now permanently fitted to my wrist. We hadn't had time to talk about it, but I'd stolen a few seconds during the reception to play with the spells running through it and figured out some of their functions. I would always know where Geneus was now, even when he would normally be beyond the range of my maryoku, and if I concentrated, I could sense a hint of his emotions. 

He folded his tunic and laid it over the back of the chair that my sword was leaning precariously against. "I apologize for not warning you, but I was not certain that I could make the spell work in its entirety. I had only a somewhat sketchy description of how it was to be cast." 

"I understand. Still, I hope this is the last of the permanent jewelry—I'm happy with people knowing that we're connected, but if I end up with much more flashy stuff they might also start thinking I'm related to Josak." 

Geneus smiled. "Lieutenant Gurrier has many sterling qualities, but I admit that tastefulness is not among them." He had his boots off now, and his shirt. I licked my lips as he reached back and began to unravel his braid. "I have been waiting all afternoon to get you to myself," he said softly as black silk cascaded down over his shoulders. Just imagining the texture of it was making Little Shouri stand up and take notice. " _My_ Shouri . . . my _husband_." 

I touched my bracelet and tried to send him the tangle of emotions I was feeling as I spoke his name. Lust and love and aching want, and I was sure some of it was getting through, because his breathing sped up slightly and his pants were getting visibly too tight. 

Rather than continuing his impromptu strip-tease, he came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. I pushed myself up and got my arm around his shoulders as he leaned down to kiss me, suddenly hungry for the taste of his mouth. I licked his lower lip, then thrust my tongue inside to press against his as my fingers tangled in his hair . . . _never let you go . . . want all of you . . ._ The shirt I was still wearing was in the way, and I clawed at the front of it. Buttons popped off and scattered across the silk sheets. I barely noticed. My chest was finally bare to press against his, but it wasn't _enough_ —I wanted to feel him on every inch of my skin, and I'd gotten those damned thong briefs on crooked or something, because my erection was sticking out a leg hole and oozing dampness against my left thigh, and why in hell did people wear clothes anyway? 

I forced myself to break the kiss. "Something isn't right," I managed to gasp. "Never felt this way—not even our first time—Shin'ou's _ass_ ," I groaned, as the sensations seemed to ratchet up another notch. My nipples—my damned _nipples_ —ached for contact, and the muscles of my ass were twitching hungrily, demanding to be filled with something _now_ , and damn the consequences. 

"His presents can be inconvenient." Geneus deliberately rubbed his body against mine, prompting a gasp from both of us. "It should wear off by morning. Remember to heal, or you may not be able to walk tomorrow— _Spirits,_ " he added as I pulled him down on top of me. _His_ nipples were pinker than usual, slightly swollen and tender-looking in the warm candlelight. 

They tasted delicious. I kept suckling on them as he rolled us both over so that I was on top of him, and tried to get my shirt the rest of the way off. I didn't want to lift my hands so that he could get the sleeves off, though, because it felt as though if I released that contact and stopped touching him, it was going to hurt. 

In the end, he narrowed his eyes and his maryoku surged around us. For a moment, we were both surrounded by crackling flame. It charred my remaining clothes to fine ash that was then carried over to the fireplace by a breath of unnatural wind. He rolled us over again for just long enough to thrash his way out of his trousers before we fell on each other like starving animals, licking and nipping and rubbing and rutting against each other's bodies. It was maddening and wonderful and _not enough_ , not until he somehow got around behind me and thrust inside. 

The orgasm hit me like a freight train, and I screamed, but even though I came all over both our stomachs in a spray of sticky white, I stayed hard. Hell, it barely even cleared my head enough for me to think _magic super-Viagra?_ before Geneus' cock scraped over my prostate and sent another jolt of pleasure surging through me, and I wrapped my legs around him and tried to pull him even deeper into my body. 

I came again as he spilled inside me, and still didn't soften. Nor did he, and I cursed thickly and tried to hold onto him with my legs as he pulled out and moved to kneel astride my stomach. Then he closed his hand around my cock, guiding it just a little further back, letting the head slide along the crack of his ass until it popped easily inside him, and he was hot and tight and _perfect_ as he lowered himself onto me. The image of him as he sheathed me fully is burned into my brain, flushed, lips parted, dark eyes glittering fathomlessly, and the faintest hint of an aura crackling around him. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and by then I had witnessed many, many of his faces. 

Our eyes locked as he rode me, and he whispered, " _Fill me._ " My body obliged him without any conscious direction from my mind, back arching, wordless sounds tearing themselves from my throat as I came for the third time. 

We continued in that vein for hours, almost maddened by whatever it was that Shin'ou had done to us. It finally faded when pink started to flush the eastern sky, and I leaned back among the pillows, feeling tired and sore and deliciously sated. And sticky, but I didn't care very much just then. 

Geneus was curled against my side, face pressed to my shoulder, with one leg thrown across mine and his hand resting mere inches from Little Shouri, who had finally gone soft. How many times had I come, anyway? The best my fuzzy brain could seem to generate was _more than ten_ , with an addendum of _my balls are probably shriveled like raisins_. 

"I don't think I'm going to be able to walk for a week," I told the ceiling . . . although I somehow seemed to have avoided tearing anything even though I'd been penetrated dry and without any stretching. _Magic lube?_ "And it was worth it," I added. "Did Magnus . . . do this to you often?" 

I felt warm breath against my skin as Geneus chuckled wearily. "I was rather familiar with his first version of the spell, but he seems to have gone to some lengths, since his death, to improve on it. The question of why . . . is one that I would prefer not to ask. And if you try to ask me anything else, I am going to spell you to sleep, beloved. The questions will still be there in the morning." 

"Mmm," I muttered, already sliding into sleep. 

It was almost noon before I woke up again, surfacing slowly out of a near-coma to find my limbs still entangled with my husband's. I considered going back to sleep, but I had mostly-dry semen practically coating me from waist to knees, and in the end discomfort won out. 

Geneus woke as I peeled myself off him, and sat up. Somehow, he'd managed to avoid getting anything in his hair, although it was tangled. A long session with a comb was clearly called for. 

"Bath," I said decisively. "Then food." I winced as I slid my legs over the side of the bed. Oh, yeah, I was definitely sore, and I was willing to bet that Geneus was too. Even with majutsu healing available, we wouldn't be doing more than hand jobs for the next couple of days. 

My husband began to leave the bed via the opposite side, but he paused in mid-motion and stuck one leg out from under the covers. Apparently, in the scramble last night, he hadn't gotten his thong briefs all the way off, and they'd remained twisted around his ankle the whole time we'd been making love. I snickered, and he smiled wryly. 

Yuuri had given us permission, the previous day, to borrow the Maoh's private bath this morning, so we were able to clean up at our leisure. I combed Geneus' hair until it shone, and he washed my back, but although we exchanged bits of healing majutsu throughout, I was still walking a bit funny after we got dressed and headed for the family dining room in the hope that there would be some food left. 

"Afternoon, Shouri-sama, M'Lord Sage." Of course, the guard outside the door would have to be someone that we knew. "You're still walking crooked?" Josak added. "Just how many times did you go at it last night?" 

Trust him to ask a question like that . . . and yet for some reason, I didn't feel inclined to blush. "Five or six. Each. We kind of lost track." 

The spy's lips pursed in a soundless whistle, and he gave us a look infused with what might have been respect. 

"Is there still food in there?" I added, nodding past him at the door. 

"Food, and a couple of people still lingering over lunch. Enjoy." 

I gave him a suspicious look before pushing the door open, but the inhabitants of the room turned out to be Dad and Heike, lingering over several half-empty serving platters, and not Murata or Mom or, Shin'ou help us, José. 

I dropped into a chair opposite Dad, winced as I jarred my aching butt, then grabbed a plate and began to serve myself almost blindly. Heike asked Geneus some kind of question about houjutsu, and my husband turned slightly in his seat to make the conversation easier. 

"Shouri." 

I raised my head and blinked at my father, who had set his empty plate to one side. 

"I only have one question for you, and I'd like you to think about it for a moment, and answer me truthfully and seriously: Are you happy?" 

Happy? 

I thought about it seriously, as he'd asked. I was in love, and married, and there would be children within the next few years. My family cared about me, even if we couldn't be together all the time the way I was used to. Yuuri and I were slowly feeling our way into a relationship more balanced than what we'd had as children. I had useful work, even if it wasn't the most entertaining, and I was learning things I had never even known were possible . . . and each elemental spirit that brushed against me as it flowed through the opening in my mind transmitted a little spark of joy as it did so. I thought of Earth, and my life there, and there was maybe a bit of wistfulness, but I couldn't feel the least desire to go back. 

I smiled, and said, firmly, "Yes, I am." And that was the absolute truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. The bad news is that it's over. The good news (if you can call it that) is that the Shouri in my head will _not_ shut up. So I have not one, but _two_ other Shouri/Geneus 'fics in progress (both completely unrelated to this one). Which means that if you give me a few months, there might just be more. ;)


End file.
